Symptoms
by whateverdudezb
Summary: First comes the infection, then the symptoms. The signs are there, the galaxy is sick of the infected humans. To prevent war, Shepard and the Normandy crew must show the galaxy that it's possible to live peacefully alongside humans, even if they do have this uncontrollable urge to mutilate. Sequel to First Infection.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: this story is nonprofit and the author has no ownership over the characters or setting.

Second disclaimer: this story is a sequel to First Infection. The author recommends reading that first to avoid confusion.

Third disclaimer: Specific chapters will have warnings at the top that will indicate that that particular chapter will have sexual content.

Symptoms

**Arcturus Stream**

Outer space.

There is no bigger or better example of something that is so empty, which is ironic because outer space holds everything. Absolutely everything that exists is in the universe. The problem though, is that "everything" is not enough. The universe is too big to be filled up by "everything," so all of it gets spread out away from each other across near unfathomable distances. Such as it is that nothing is close to anything.

But for all of its emptiness, there are quite a number of interesting things in the universe.

And the ones with thoughts in their heads have found ways to get to these interesting things.

On the black plane covered in white dots that was the backdrop of outer space, sat the bright blue and red gas cloud that was known to the denizens of the galaxy as the Arcturus Stream. And in the Arcturus Stream there was something of such insignificant size compared to the rest of the universe that it could be just that: insignificant, and yet it moved at such phenomenal speeds that it nearly conquered the empty distance that was the galaxy's stomach.

Nearly.

_That_ distinction goes to the object that the little insignificant something was heading toward: a mass relay.

"_The Arcturus prime relay is in range, initiating transmission sequence."_

Shaped like a tuning fork, the mass relay was of a metal construct of a massive scale. Near the base of this construct was a giant glowing blue core surrounded by two gyroscopic rings that revolved in place around the blue energy.

"_We are connected, calculating transit mass and destination."_

Moving toward said relay was a starship, not a ship made from stars but one that was built to traverse through the sea of stars.

"_Relay is hot, acquiring approach vector."_

Shaped in the curves of elegance, the starship's two wings held aloft four mighty engines that blasted the craft through the emptiness of space.

"_All stations, secure for transit."_

In the soundlessness of space, the starship drew ever closer to the mass relay as the construct's gyroscopic rings started to spin faster in complete silence.

"_Board is green, approach run has begun."_

Now close enough to the mass relay, the starship diverted its angle of trajectory to curve to the side of the giant relay.

"_Hitting the relay in… three… two… one."_

Suddenly, a stream of blue energy jumped out of the core and enveloped the starship in a blue glow before catapulting the tiny ship instantaneously to somewhere far away with nothing but a stream of blue lines of the ship's trajectory to be left behind before those too faded away.

* * *

**CSV Normandy**

Surrounded by glowing holographic interfaces sat a male human in a chair. With elongated fingers and a protruding spine that popped out of its slightly hunched form, the male human belonged to the subset category of humans known as special infected, but more specifically he belonged to the jockey mutation.

Reaching a hand up to straighten the navy cap that was atop of his head, the jockey pressed a few tabs on the holographic interface and started doing a systems check of the ship he piloted.

"Thrusters… check. Navigation… check. Internal emissions sink engaged. All systems online. Drift… just under fifteen hundred K," he finished aloud with just the smallest hint of pride in his voice near the end.

Standing a bit back behind the seated form of the pilot stood a complete rarity on a human vessel: an alien.

Nihlus Kyrik, with hard plated skin, a pair of three-talon hands, and a set of mandibles around the mouth was of the species called turian, the proud militaristic race of the Citadel Council prevailing from Palaven. Wearing the white facial markings of his clan, Nihlus tilted his head slightly downward to address the pilot.

"Fifteen hundred is good, you're captain will be pleased," he complimented neutrally.

"Damn right the captain will be pleased!" the pilot shouted enthusiastically, surprising Nihlus a bit, although he did keep a somewhat straight face at the pilot's outburst. With a jump, the pilot twisted around and gripped the headrest of the seat, his now-in-view thin messy beard curved by a smirk, "I just hit a target the size of a needle, the smaller pointy end of a needle I might add, and just jumped us halfway across the galaxy, so that's incredible!"

Fringing his mandibles in slight irritation, Nihlus responded with slight tones of sarcasm, "Same with the millions of other pilots who've ever traveled through a mass relay."

With an annoyed grunt the pilot sat back down the right way, "True, but no pilot can do it with the same kind of pizazz that _I_ can."

"Piz-what?"

Ignoring the alien's confusion the pilot turned to his right looking for confirmation, "Ain't that right, Kaiden?"

Sitting in the ship's co-pilot seat was another human, but covered completely in white armor. Belonging to the smoker mutation, the individual's protruding tongues were hidden under the thick armor while two ventilation shafts situated on the armor's back expelled the green smoke that smokers naturally gave off from their bodies. The helmet that covered the co-pilot's head had a thin mechanical crack along the bottom-half of it that could be snapped open to present the individual's mouth, and the helmet also had a large, glowing red optical unit to serve as the suit's camera.

Kaiden silently turned his helmeted head toward the pilot, the glowing red eye staring into the jockey's face neutrally.

After a small moment of staring, Kaiden, without a word, turned his head back to the holographic interface before him.

With a smile, the pilot also returned to the controls at his fingers, "That's right," he confirmedly nodded in agreement.

Nihlus just shook his head in disappointment, "I would have thought that the Collective's best pilot would be a lot more disciplined than this."

The pilot turned his head back slightly toward Nihlus, "Oh, don't be a hardass, we've already got the captain who's been filling out that role recently," he replied irritably.

"First off, I'm only like that to smartasses, namely you, and second, my ass is firm, not hard, there is a _distinct_ difference."

As one, all three turned their heads to find the ship's commanding officer walking up to them.

Captain Shepard.

With bright green eyes that glowed naturally and sunny blonde hair that flowed voluminously just slightly down past her shoulders, Shepard was a female of the human race as noted by her wide hips and her generous-sized mammary glands. Weighing down on her shoulders was a dark brown leather trench coat that stretched down to just below her knees and had the four military bars of captain stitched on the end of the coat's arms. The coat was hanging open on her form and so allowed everyone to see her dark green tank top that hugged her figure nicely and her loose, brown cargo pants that dangled from her hips to her black combat boots.

And hanging at her sides were her hands, her claws, her twelve-inch-long claws that were the mainstay of the witch mutation. Starting off with the white Caucasian skin at her palms, her skin darkened in color to a black ivory hue that surrounded her long, diamond-hard claws.

Addressing Nihlus, she said, with a smirk on her face and a nod toward the pilot, "Don't mind Joker, he's a pilot and _all_ pilots have egos the size of their wingspan, and unfortunately for us the navy has yet to find a dreadnought that fits his size, so they dropped him in with us and now we're stuck with him."

"Damn straight!"

"But anyways," continued Shepard as she addressed Nihlus, "your presence has been requested in the comm room."

Nihlus crossed his arms and gave Shepard an inquisitive stare, "I assume that the communications room is still in the same place and that it hasn't been moved around from the ship's _original_ design."

"Yes, it's still in the same place," answered Shepard who then gestured in the direction away from the cockpit with a nod of her head, "just keep going that way and go through any of the doors that doesn't open up the elevator and you'll be there."

"Hmm," with a silent nod of thanks, Nihlus turned and headed toward where Shepard had directed.

Staying back, Shepard stood silently in the cockpit as she watched the turian march off.

After she was satisfied that Nihlus had walked far enough away she cocked her head back slightly and said, "Joker, status report."

"We've just cleared the mass relay. The stealth systems are engaged and we are en route to Eden Prime," replied Joker, "Everything looks solid."

"Good, good," said Shepard, nodding at the words.

She then swiftly twisted around and stabbed Joker in the cheek with her claws.

"Ow! Hey!"

But with only just enough force to barely pierce the skin.

Rubbing the painful pinprick that he received on the side of his face, Joker gave his captain an angry questioning stare.

"Joker, please don't piss off the alien spectre," Captain Shepard _requested_ of her pilot in a tired tone, "the entire point of this mission is to _improve_ relations with the aliens, not annoy them."

"Hey! He was sassing my skills as a pilot! What was I supposed to do?"

With a questioning eyebrow raised, Shepard turned to the other occupant of the cockpit, "…Kaiden?"

"Nihlus gave him a compliment and he threw it in his face," Kaiden answered meticulously without looking up from the interface.

"Hey! Don't sell me out you quiet prick-Ow!" Joker's outburst was interrupted by another 'light' poke of his cheek.

"Just shut up and drive," said Shepard with a smirk, "and that's an order."

Rubbing his slightly bleeding cheek, Joker grumbled, "Yes, ma'am," and focused back onto the ship's controls.

Smiling, Shepard patted Joker on the head and gave him a quick kiss on his injured cheek, "That's a good boy," she said in a humorously mocking tone before turning around and walking out of the cockpit, leaving a disgruntled pilot.

"What am I? A trained house pet?"

"…It _would_ be an improvement," replied Kaiden.

Walking down the main aisle of the Combat Information Center that connected the cockpit to the center of the CIC, Shepard came upon the galaxy map. Suspended in midair in the very center of the CIC was a holographic representation of the Milky Way galaxy, in all of its spiral glory. Surrounding the glowing hologram were various consoles that glowed a bright orange from their holographic interfaces. One of these consoles was being attended by her executive officer.

The executive officer in question turned around at the sound of approaching footsteps and immediately saluted his commanding officer in greeting, "Congratulations, Captain, looks like we've had a smooth run."

"So it seems, Pressly," replied Shepard. Pressly was of the Spitter mutation, so his shaved head was situated on top of an elongated neck that gave him a few inches in height to the Captain. And to Shepard's notice, he looked just the tiny bit stressed.

"Anything the matter?" she asked.

Pressly shook his head, "Not really, no. But… well, I am just a bit anxious for when we have aliens onboard the Normandy. There's just going to be so many problems."

"That's some opinion you've got there, Pressly," replied Shepard, crossing her arms under her breasts, "I didn't know you had such little hope for this peace project."

With a surprised look on his face, Pressly quickly attempted to amend what he meant, "Oh! No, ma'am. I'm not saying that. I just mean that us, us humans I mean, don't have a whole lot of experience with aliens and the experience that we do have wasn't exactly under peaceful pretenses, so complications _are_ going to pop up, there's just no way around it."

Shepard let loose a quirky smile, "You can calm down, Pressly, I was only teasing. I know quite well that you meant nothing by it," she then nodded solemnly, "But I do see your point, but there's really no reason to worry about that now, at least not like that. In a mission like this, complications are to be expected," she then showed off a smile, "in fact, fixing them is near the entire point of this mission."

"Yeah, I suppose your right," agreed Pressly, his posture and tone slightly less anxious than previously, but still somewhat concerned.

It was then that Shepard noticed what was going on just a few paces behind Pressly, "Speaking of complications…" she muttered, "please, excuse me," Shepard then walked past her executive officer and headed toward the conversation next to the ship's elevator that was going on between the smoker, the charger, and…

…and the turian spectre, Nihlus Kyrik.

"Well, it's a very peaceful planet and we're mostly a farming community there. Why we farm all kinds of things there: corn, wheat, carrots, we also breed commons by the bush loads there," said the charger to the turian. A male, as all chargers are, he had the huge, naturally armor-plated arm that he hung in front of his broad chest. "Oh! And weed. We grow a _ton_ of weed there."

"And you don't know why we would be heading there?" asked Nihlus, his tone polite but inquisitive.

With his larger arm, the charger took off his beret, and with his smaller arm he proceeded to scratch an itch on his head as he answered the question, "None that I can think of, we're already well stocked with food and we've got plenty of commons down in the lower cargo hold. And the planet's only got one hive city, the capital up in the mountains, and no R&D facility," the charger finished his words by placing his beret back on his head.

"What the hell is this?" asked Shepard as she walked up to them, her sharp hands flayed out in the open questioningly as if to better catch the answer that will be thrown at her. Her tone of voice did not indicate any kind of anger, just confusion.

"Ah, apologies Captain Shepard," answered Nihlus, "I was on my way to the comm room when I near ran into Private Jenkins here," he gestured toward the large charger with the slightly wide ears, "I learned that he's originally from Eden Prime and so I decided to stay and ask him a few question about the planet we're headed to."

"…Right, well that's all well and good, but I think it's time we headed to the comm room," said Shepard, she then turned to the charger and nodded to him in goodbye, "Private Jenkins."

Jenkins nodded back, "Captain."

Shepard turned to the female smoker with the long auburn hair standing next to the private, "Kelly Chambers," she nodded.

With eyes cheerfully closed and a smile that absolutely glowed happiness, she gave the captain a short hand wave goodbye, "See you later, captain," she replied chirpily.

"Well then," said Shepard as she faced Nihlus and gestured her arms to the entrance to the communications room situated behind the elevator, "shall we?"

Nihlus just only nodded his answer before walking through the doors that automatically slid open for him with Captain Shepard following. Behind them, the female smoker known as Kelly put her hand on Jenkins shoulder, leading him to the elevator, "C'mon, Private," she said, "I can tell that you're stressed, so let's go down to the crew quarters and I'll help soothe you."

Once inside the communications room, Nihlus couldn't help but comment on it.

"It's a lot bigger and more intricate than it was originally designed," he said neutrally with no indication in his voice that would make his comment sound like a complaint.

And indeed Nihlus was correct in his assessment. From the entrance the communications room broadened out horizontally into a rectangular shape. The walls were covered in various screens, some were blank while others were filled with bits of data that streamed along the screens. Scattered along various parts of the surface floor were mechanical projectors that were used to project all sorts of holograms in the midst of the room. In the very center of the room, slightly elevated from the surface with a ramp leading to it was a wide platform. Circular in design and with railings trimming the diameter of it this platform held a round conference table. Overlooking this platform was a large holographic screen that displayed a picture of green pastures.

On this platform and leaning against the table was a yellow eyed witch in a translucent white robe.

"Nihlus, this is Anita Goyle. She will be humanity's ambassador on the Citadel," said Shepard, introducing her fellow witch to the turian as they both walked up the ramp.

"Actually, no," replied Anita as she removed her slouch figure from against the table, "because humanity doesn't have an embassy on the Citadel, I'm not technically an ambassador of the Collective. Instead, I'm the representative of the humans on the Collective and Citadel shared Normandy starship and will act as the envoy for the Collective government for this peace project and I will have Captain Anderson and Doctor Isaac Kleiner acting as my advisors to the military and research development branches of our government."

With a raised eyebrow and a cheerful smirk, Shepard said, "So, basically you're humanity's ambassador."

Anita rolled her glowing yellow eyes, "In reality: yes. In politics: no."

"And of course those two things are entirely separate from each other."

A knowing smile crossed Anita's features, "Of course."

"Speaking of which," crossing his arms, Nihlus stared at the both of them at the same time, "jabs at politics aside, I would very much like to know why we're not heading to the Citadel right now to drop the ambassador off and to pick up the rest of the ship's crew as was originally planned?"

"Why because of the prothean beacon, of course!" answered an enthusiastic voice from behind them to which belonged to a jockey in a white lab coat coming up the ramp. With a shaved head, a ruffled lab coat and thick, black rimmed glasses over his eyes he looked every part the scientist. Following behind him was a charger wearing the formal navy blue officer's uniform complete with the captain's cap.

"Nihlus, this is Doctor Isaac Kleiner," Shepard introduced the jockey in the lab coat who nodded in greeting, "and this is Captain Anderson," the charger gave a short, firm nod to Nihlus.

Nihlus returned the nods in greeting before facing Dr. Kleiner, "You mentioned a prothean beacon?"

Dr. Kleiner nodded vigorously, "Yes, Yes, it was just recently uncovered on Eden Prime," Dr. Kleiner's arm was suddenly covered by glowing silver palettes and with a few quick taps on the interface, the holographic screen that was overlooking them all changed from a picture of green pastures to one of a monolithic alien device situated in the middle of an excavation site, "Quite remarkable really, it's almost entirely preserved. Why, a discovery like this hasn't been made since humanity uncovered those alien ruins on Mars."

"And the Collective has decided to share this discovery with the Citadel as a show of trust," said Anita with a politician's smile on her face.

"Provided, of course, if Dr. Kleiner assists in studying it and all of its uncovered secrets are shared openly with us," interjected Captain Anderson sternly.

Nihlus gave each of them an inquisitive stare. Protheans were an ancient alien race that once had a galaxy spanning empire fifty thousand years ago before they vanished. It is they who are credited with creating the Citadel and the mass relays, by which without interstellar travel would be impossible. All advanced galactic civilizations are based upon the scraps of prothean technology found in ancient ruins, to find a working beacon…

Why would the Collective openly share this with the Citadel, a faction that they share a tense relationship with at best? Unless of course…

Nihlus folded his arms smugly, "Who else already knows about the beacon's existence?"

Three frowns were worn in that room, but Shepard had a demure smile as she eyed the spectre, "Well, aren't you a perceptive one," she said knowingly. The captain of the Normandy shrugged in a nonchalant way, "If you must know, we discovered an STG spy drone over Eden Prime just a few days after we uncovered the prothean beacon, so we can assume someone on the Citadel already knows."

"Shepard!" Anderson said warningly.

"Hmm?" It was then that Shepard noticed the looks she was receiving from her fellow humans, "Ah, right," Shepard raised her clawed hands to make finger quotations, "the _allegedly_ STG spy drone," she let loose another nonchalant shrug, "either way, it's destroyed, we assume the Council already knows, and here we are," she finished as she leaned against the railing casually.

And there it was.

Prothean artifacts have immense scientific value and are considered to belong to the galaxy as a whole. Harboring one for yourself could strain a species relationship with the other races of the galaxy at the best of times.

Before the prothean beacon was uncovered, humanity and the Citadel Council were not having the best of times.

Caught red-handed, the Collective had no choice but to share this discovery with the rest of the galaxy, or else it could result into a bloody war.

Having no desire to start such a war, Nihlus adopted a politically polite attitude and played his role.

He focused his polite demeanor onto Anita, "To share something of this kind of value would definitely improve humanity's public image in the eyes of the Citadel, and I am sure the Council will agree to your terms" said Nihlus, he then looked at them all inquisitively, "So long as your government is entirely okay with this."

"Yes, it is," answered Anita quickly before she then took an aside glance and mumbled, "well… at least two thirds of the government is."

Shepard brought a clawed hand up to her lips to stifle her giggles.

"Ah yes," said Dr. Kleiner in a neutral tone as he straightened his glasses, "the Director and Advisors of the Research and Development division were a bit… _clingy_ to the beacon."

Captain Anderson let loose a derisive snort, "That's putting it lightly."

Any comment that Nihlus was going to make was abruptly cut off by Joker's voice over the intercom, _"Captain, we've got a problem."_

"What is it, Joker?" asked Shepard, her head tilted upward by some natural impulse to do so.

"_We've got five unidentified frigates in Eden Prime's orbit, right over the position of the excavation site,"_ answered Joker.

"Have they noticed us?" questioned Shepard, her tone was much more serious now.

"_Stealth systems are engaged and they haven't changed their formation on our approach, so as far as I can tell they haven't noticed us?"_

"Good," she said with a smirk, "I'd hate to have those stealth systems be an entire waste of time and money," a frown then crossed her features, "Joker, can you establish a secure transmission with anyone planetside? Eden Prime's main Administrative tower, maybe?"

"_Communication ain't exactly my specialty, captain, but Kaiden says he might be able to,"_ replied Joker.

"Do it."

"_Yes, ma'am,"_ that was Kaiden over the intercom this time.

Shepard turned to address the others in the room, "So, does anyone have any ideas on who exactly it is that's trying to botch the Normandy's first mission?"

"Pirates? Mercenaries? It's probably some faction originating from the Terminus systems," proposed Nihlus, "no doubt they're here for the beacon."

"The Terminus Systems?" questioned Anita, "The Collective is on relatively good terms with them, and I doubt they even know we have the beacon."

"_Captain!"_ That was Kaiden on the intercom again, _"I was unable to contact anyone planetside, not without giving away our position, but I was able to pick up a receding transmission from Eden Prime, it's an audio recording."_

"Play it," ordered Shepard as everyone stayed silent to listen.

The first thing that was heard was static, and then came some garbled voices, it was clear that the recording was damaged somehow. Sounds of gunshots and explosions were heard off somewhere in the background as someone started talking.

"_-need evac! We need evac! They came out of nowhere! We-agh!"_

An explosion cut off the speaker's voice as the audio became static.

"_-orking! Commons are ineffective! We're taking heavy casualties! We…"_

Silence.

"_WHAT THE HELL IS THA-"_

And then suddenly the speaker's voice and all of the gunshots and explosions that were heard in the background were overtaken by the loudest, most reverberating eruption of sound that anyone in the room has ever heard. So horrible it was that everyone in the room brought up their hands to their earholes to block out the sound until the audio recording ended.

"By the Spirits," muttered Nihlus, "what was that?"

"It sounded like a horrible klaxon from hell," answered Shepard.

"Whatever it was, it doesn't matter," said Anderson before he focused on Shepard, "Captain Shepard, the beacon must be secured."

"Right," she agreed with a nod, "I'll get Kaiden and Jenkins, a small strike team will be our best chance in securing the beacon."

"I agree," said Nihlus, "and I'll be joining."

"What?!" Shepard looked utterly taken aback at Nihlus's words, "are you kidding me? No! You'll be swarmed by the commons!"

"Ah, yes, about that," replied the turian spectre as he held out a small canister, "I was going to tell you, Citadel scientists have been developing a way for us non-infected individuals to not be targeted by your commons."

Silence reigned between the four infected humans as they all stared at the turian in… amazement? No, not amazement. It was more of trepidation than anything else. Apprehension and worry crossed their faces as they gave each other sidelong glances.

"Which is good," continued Nihlus, not noticing or perhaps perfectly ignoring the humans' expressions, "because this will help open relations with other races for you guys. Of course, _this_," he shook the canister in his talons, "is only a prototype and will only work for a few hours, but if it works then I and the rest of the nonhuman crew can join the missions that are situated on human planets."

"…Right, yeah that's… great, this is a… good thing," answered Shepard, her tone worrisome, but she then quickly shrugged it off, "look, we'll talk about it _after_ we've secured the beacon, but if you think it works, then I guess you can join me on this mission." With that, Shepard marched toward the exit of the comm room.

"Wait," said Nihlus with confusion in his voice, "You're joining? As the captain, shouldn't you stay on the Normandy?"

After the bombshell that Nihlus just dropped on all of them, Shepard was glad that she was able to befuddle the spectre, if only a little. Turning her head back with a smile on her face, Shepard said, "Pressly and Anderson can handle things up here, besides," as she walked, Shepard's claws traced against the railing, creating just the barest hint of a scraping sound, "I work better on the ground."

* * *

**Earth, Administrative Tower **

**2182 C.E. One year before the launch of the Normandy**

"How about this guy," a gruff voice uttered, "Josh Mack, served in the military for thirty years, gained recognition during the Battle of Mindoir-"

"I've seen his file," interrupted a voice, "he has a great military career, but his knowledge of our society is limited to a couple of hive cities. Plus, he was recommended by Fleet Admiral Gray, and I don't want anyone recommended by Gray on _that_ ship."

"Not everyone under Gray's command is as ruthless, you know?"

"I know, Bill, but I still want someone who can best represent _all_ of humanity. Not just the single territory they were born in, and for that, I need someone who's knowledgeable of the Collective's many societies."

"You're killing me here, Louis," the gruff voice responded, "Whoever we pick is going to have to share command of that ship with one of the Council's spectres, one of their most elite and deadly units, and I will not choose someone unless I know that they won't _kowtow_ to whatever that Council spectre demands."

"Look, military career isn't the problem here, you've brought plenty of applicants. But whoever we choose is going to be the face of humanity for the rest of the galaxy, so we need to find someone in this pile who can best represent humanity as a decent people, not just as a race with good soldiers."

The sound of footsteps.

"If I may interject, gentlemen," a smooth voice entered the picture, "I believe I have the candidate that will satisfy both of your requirements."

"Well," grumbled the gruff voice, "if it isn't the elusive leader of our Intelligence division."

"Don't mind him, Nick. Who do you have for us."

"Her name is Shepard, she's a captain in the Hell's Legion."

"A Hell's Legionnaire? Ha!" laughed the gruff voice, "To have one of _his_ soldiers in command of that ship. Now that would be a sight to see if it wasn't so stupid."

"She's the one you want," persisted the smooth voice.

"Let me see that applicant file you have of her," ordered the gruff voice.

"Certainly."

"Let's see here… this says that she's only been in the Hell's Legion for seven years and that she has very little experience in commanding a vessel."

"She has plenty of experience commanding a vessel; she just hasn't done so in the military."

"I'm sorry, but who is she again?"

"She changed her last name to Shepard, but we've always known her as Alyx," the smooth voice answered.

"…" Silence.

It was silent.

"Wait, when you mean Alyx, do you mean… _Alyx_?"

"Yes, it's her."

Silence

"…Holy shit, she disappeared off the face of the earth over a century ago!"

"And you've found her," said the gruff voice.

"_Found_ implies that she was ever lost to begin with," replied the smooth voice.

"Why didn't you tell us you were keeping tabs on her?!"

"I promised her that I wouldn't say anything."

"She knew that you would find her, so she went to you and made you promise," the gruff voice summarized.

"Yes," answered the smooth voice, "and I would appreciate it if you didn't meet her, I do have a promise to keep after all."

"When _can_ we meet her? Because I think that after a century, it is long overdue."

"Soon," answered the smooth voice, "she _does_ want to meet all of us again, she wouldn't apply to a position like this one if she didn't want to on some level."

"There is the matter of her application," interjected the gruff voice, "she's not just doing this to get our attention is she?"

"Of course not, she can and will do this."

"You think she's the best humanity has to offer?"

"…Louis, Bill, she's been _everywhere_. She's done _everything_ that there is to be done in the Collective. She has more experience than anyone in that pile of applicants you have there on that table _combined_, so yes. I do believe that she is humanity's best."

* * *

**Author's Note**

**I…**

**AM…**

**BACK!**

**Yes, that's right everyone after five months of waiting, the sequel to First Infection is here. Submitted on the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of this story, go ahead, check the dates both stories were published.**

**You know, when I was writing this story I kept twirling my mustache all evil-like whenever I wrote something that deviated from the norm.**

**Except, I don't have a mustache, so… yeah…**

**Anyways! I will admit that this chapter did follow, in some linear aspect, the introduction to the first game. In later chapters, I plan on trying to lessen the similarity to the original story in various ways, until maybe only a mission's basic outline is similar to the original.**

**That said, there are already many changes to the original Normandy crew, some of which you can spot in this very chapter.**

**Omake 1**

"So… let me get this straight."

Shepard turned to Nihlus, whom had a curious look on his face.

"This starship is going to spear point the peace project that's going to bring peace between our governments, and you decide to name it after the location of the most bloodiest and life-costing battle from the one of the most devastating wars that you humans have ever experienced?"

"Well," said Shepard, "we _were_ going to name it the Geneva, after where the Geneva conventions were created, because it established the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of war. Which we thought would go well with this ship, but…"

"But what?"

"Well… Normandy just sounded cooler, ya'know?"

**Hmm… I seem to be forgetting something…**

**Something important…**

**Something that I promised…**

**OH! THAT'S RIGHT!**

**Omake 2**

This was the battle of the century-NO!

…The battle of the millennium.

On one side was a humongous being of epic proportions. With a broad chest and large arms that literally bulged with muscles this being was known as a tank.

But this was no ordinary tank, _this _tank had an eloquent posture, he wore a classy top hat atop of his head, and he had a fancy monocle situated over his right eye. In his large, muscular hands, hands that could easily rip bone from muscle as one would tear paper, there was a white teacup filled with some of the most exquisite tea to ever originate from the large island known as Great Britain.

Yes, this was a tank that perfectly portrayed the very upper crust of society, and it is because of this that he is known as: Sir Tank.

Across from him was his opponent.

A slim figure he was, especially in comparison to the towering figure that was Sir Tank. But this should not stop one from acknowledging the sheer awesomeness that was…

Mordin The Great, who was so great that even the "the" in his title was capitalized.

This was the salarian who one time kicked a krogan so hard in the balls, he neutered the entire race.

When everyone in the universe was puking their guts out, he was enjoying a sloppy joe.

When he gambles, his success is absolute.

He travels through space on a motorcycle, only because his jetpack was in the shop.

He is…

The Most Amazing Salarian in the Universe.

And today, he battles Sir Tank.

Mordin The Great and Sir Tank stare through each other with piercing gazes. They had been staring at each other for hours on end, waiting for one to make his first move in a battle that not only decides the fate of the universe, but of also who will get the last piece of pizza.

Sweat bathes their backs, their faces were scrunched up in pure concentration.

Suddenly, Mordin raises his hand, his left hand to be precise, and with slow steady ease he grabs the pawn and moves it across the chessboard exactly one space forward.

Sir Tank raised his tea in recognition, "Splendid first move, good sir."

"Fascinating."

And then the universe exploded.

Twice.

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember, I'll love you more if you make your review longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**

**BUT FIRST! I WANT TO HEAR FROM ALL OF MY OLD FOLLOWERS, ESPECIALLY OF THOSE WHO HAD COMMENTED ON MY STORY BEFORE! PLEASE, TAKE THE TIME TO SAY SOMETHING IN THE COMMENT SECTION, EVEN IF IT'S SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS: "I AM HERE AND FOLLOWING," THAT WILL DO. SO COME ON EVERYBODY! AND DON'T BE AFRAID TO COMMENT FOR YOUR FIRST TIME, I DON'T BITE, NOT THAT I COULD EVEN IF I WANTED TO!**

**Seriously though, it's great to be back writing.**


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: this story is nonprofit and the author has no ownership over the characters or setting.

Symptoms

**CSV Normandy, Communications room**

The three representatives of humanity, the ones that represent the military, administrative, and scientific divisions of their government silently watched Nihlus Kyrik exit the communications room, a gray metal canister in his talons. When the mechanical doors slid closed at Nihlus's leaving, the military representative turned toward the other two, and, with his smaller hand, he stroked his chin in silent contemplation.

"Well," uttered Captain Anderson, breaking his short silence, "that's not entirely good, is it?"

"Not entirely good!?" sputtered Anita Goyle, her expression is one of bafflement and her tone just tinging on anger, "It's _not_ good! It's not good at all!" She pointed toward the room's exit," I mean, do you know what it means if that canister can truly mask that turian from our commons? If it can stop the commons from mindlessly killing any alien that walks on our planets?" She held up one black, ivory claw in front of her, "One less reason. That is one less reason for why us humans can not join the Citadel. One less excuse I can throw at their Council for when they no doubt pester me about it. And we didn't have too many excuses to begin with anyways!"

"No," agreed Anderson, "just a whole lot of reasons that we can't tell them."

Anita lifted herself onto the table, her face gaining a somber tone, "I still remember that day, so long ago, when the Council offered us to join this greater galactic community." She smiled, "It was so exciting and seemed almost unbelievable to think that this would happen in my lifetime," a frown then crossed her features, "but then the Administrator himself sent us that message and told us exactly why it was so unbelievable: the commons being actively hostile, the danger of our own psyche, and the Citadel's restrictions on genetic modifications." Anita let loose a depressing sigh, "We _couldn't _join."

"But now, with that prototype the turian has that may change," Dr. Kleiner offered hopefully.

"Yes, yes," Anita replied in a dismissive fashion, "And the Council has already offered us humans full amnesty from their restrictions on genetic modifications so long as we keep the modifying focused on what the Virus has done to our bodies," she shrugged at that, "a little limiting, but we can easily deal with that. Not to mention that we ourselves have already learned how to deal with our psyche. Just provide us plenty of food, the opposite gender," she smirked playfully at her two _assistants_, "and finally just give us something to kill and we're good."

Anita gave Kleiner a serious stare, "But we all know that those aren't the _real_ reasons we didn't join, they were just something that we could tell them."

"Ah, yes. The Director and her Advisors," said Dr. Kleiner, remembering those he reported to, "If they found out what they really are… the implications could be disastrous."

She blew a tuft of her hair out of her face sarcastically, "What? Telling an entire galactic civilization with a severe AI phobia that one-third of our government is run by computers? And that they're the ones who turned us into this?" She gestured to herself with her very sharp claws, "Yeah! I'd say that the implications would be pretty disastrous. Hell, the quarians would probably pop a suit breach from sheer anger."

"And that's just if they found out about the Director," said Anderson, "there are still plenty of other secrets we're keeping from them, like the ferals."

Anita involuntarily shuddered before shaking it off, "Yes, well, the point here is that I can't _tell_ the Council these reasons, and now that the excuse with our commons is useless, I'll have to rely on the dangers of our psyche to convince them and we've been downplaying that problem for years, so now it's just going to make us humans look like we're too stubborn to join the Citadel. _That_ ruins our image, which makes making friends and allies all the more harder."

She covered her face with her claws in frustration, muttering to herself, "I should've retired when I had the chance…"

"Oh?! You're one to talk," said Anderson, pointing a thumb to himself, "I _was_ retired before this, enjoying a nice, cold beverage on a sunny beach before _someone_ requested me on this assignment and the brass _convinced_ me to go on it."

"Ditto," added Kleiner, crossing his arms.

Anita lowered her claws from her face to reveal rose-tinted cheeks and a cheeky smile, "Heh, sorry about that. Can't blame an old gal for wanting some old friends by her side, especially on an unfamiliar alien space station, right?"

Captain Anderson and Dr. Kleiner didn't answer her.

"Alright… so," coughed Anita awkwardly as she tried to change the subject, "how come we've never heard anything about this? The Citadel was working on a way to stop the commons from being violent? That's something we should have been told, or at least discovered by our spies or something."

"We probably already did know," replied Captain Anderson, his voice low and blunt, "Once the situation on Eden Prime has cleared up, I'm going to send an encrypted message to Arcturus, telling the higher ups to contact our Intelligence division on this matter. No doubt they've already known for quite some time."

Anita noted Anderson's tone at the mention of the Collective's Intelligence division, which is understandable as the military and intelligence network have had a strained relationship since, well… ever. An attitude stemming from the fact that the Intelligence division is very concise on what information they give out, how much information they release, and on whom they share this information with.

"Well, they better have a damn good reason for not telling us," grumbled Anita.

* * *

**CSV Normandy, Common storage room**

Nihlus gripped the railing with slight trepidation as he gazed down at the cages below; the suspended platform that he stood on hanged by metal wires from the ceiling.

Sixteen cages, there were sixteen cages arranged in a four by four set, with each cage holding up to twenty or more of the subspecies of humans known as commons. Lacking the amazing abilities and intelligence that the special infected have, the commons were considered to be little more than a near limitless supply of cannon fodder and are really only useful when in large groups.

They were also hostile to anything that wasn't infected with their Virus.

The cage below Nihlus's feet, the one closest to him, was filled with the furious ravings of the near two dozen commons inside it. Their angry snarls and howls coupled with the way the commons inside frantically beat against the metal bars helped paid tribute to the image of a caged box of fury. The crazed commons even had their arms reaching out between the bars all aimed at Nihlus, trying to fruitlessly reach him, to grab him, to take him by his fringes and tear him apart or maybe beat him with their bare hands, anything, just so long as it would get rid of him.

"I didn't know the Normandy held this many commons," said Nihlus.

Casually leaning forward against the railing, Captain Shepard replied, "Yeah, I was disappointed at the number too. I'd thought we'd have more."

"_Not what I meant,"_ thought Nihlus sardonically, "So, why are they naked?"

Surprisingly, Shepard turned her head to him with a raised eyebrow in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"This first row here," Nihlus said as he gestured broadly with his arm, "the commons in them aren't wearing anything, while the rest are wearing armor."

"Ah, yes, we use those commons for breeding," answered Shepard, "it's standard ship procedure to keep a quarter of your commons on board for breeding, mostly females and a few males, so as to help replenish lost numbers. It is faster to just grab some from a planet, but it's always good to have some backups. The nudity is just for… heh, ease of access."

Looking back down at the cage, Nihlus now noticed that the cage was indeed mostly made up of females, with a few males randomly strung in there. The females were also showing clear signs of pregnancy, with curved bellies bulging outward from their stomachs, a child laying heavily in each one. A few even had infants suckling at their lactating breasts, the setae on their little hands and feet keeping them gripped to their indifferent mothers' chests as they furiously banged against the metal bars in an effort to reach Nihlus.

"They seem just as manic with or without child," commented Nihlus, "you would think that the mothers would be more cautious with their children. Survival instincts and all that."

Shepard was silent.

She stared down at her frantic and crazed kin with half-lidded eyes.

Quietly, in silence, she spoke, "The mad have no understanding of such things."

Nihlus glanced at her.

Turning around so that her back leaned against the railing while she rested her elbows on it, her long claws draping down from her arms, Shepard gave Nihlus a pleasant smile that was only slightly fringed with a guilty bitterness, "So, let's get to it," she said with high spirits. With a slight wave of her claws, she lazily gestured toward the canister hanging from Nihlus's hips, "Test that thing out and see if it works as you claim it does."

Grabbing the canister from his hip, Nihlus twisted the uppermost portion of the canister counterclockwise. He then pulled it upward, sliding out a cylinder rod that had four rectangular holes on it, before twisting it clockwise with a snap, locking it in place. Nihlus placed the unlocked canister back on his hip while a near odorless stench puffed out of the four holes.

_Near_ odorless.

Sniff.

Shepard blinked her green, glowing eyes in a mixture of confusion and surprise as the stench wafted through her nostrils. It was a very familiar smell that she had come to know throughout her life.

Sniff, sniff.

"Is that… _boomer bile_?" she asked incredulously. Taking a step toward the turian, the smell immediately became much more worse. That's not to say that it was a bad smell per say, far from it, in fact it smelled just as sweet as regular boomer bile, it's just that it was _too_ intense. If Shepard took a few steps back, the smell would be quite bearable, even nice, but getting too close felt like someone had taken that same sweet smell, sharpened it into a harsh point and started slowly pushing the sharp edge into her brain _through_ her nostrils.

Shepard took a step away from the turian.

"Technically, no. It's a completely synthesized chemical _based_ off of boomer bile, but with a few modification to its general makeup," explained Nihlus, "namely its smell."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Shepard replied sarcastically while doing her best to save face and _not_ scrunch up her nose too much, "how can you handle that smell?"

Nihlus glanced down at the canister briefly before shrugging indifferently, "I'll admit, it does smell terrible, but it's almost odorless, so most of the time I don't even notice it."

Shepard gave Nihlus a quizzical eye, glanced at the canister at his hip, before returning her gaze to Nihlus. Finally, she rested her eyes on the commons in the cage, no longer banging against the metal bars furiously, instead they had become docile and stared at Nihlus. Many of the commons in the other cages started staring too.

"I guess it's just us infected that smell it," said Shepard quietly. Stepping away from the railing, Shepard walked past Nihlus, doing her best to ignore the smell, "C'mon, let's get outfitted in the armory, we've got a beacon to save after all."

* * *

**Eden Prime**

The storm was heavy on her, the gush of rainwater slamming into her shoulders and riveting down her back. A gray mist formed from her mouth as she let out a silent, bated breath. Below, four glowing blue lights shakily moved forward in a rough fashion. In the black forest the wind howled through the darkness, obscuring all the little noises that could mean the difference between life and death.

A bolt of lightning flashed through the sky, rolls of thunder following.

In that instant, as the bolt of lightning danced in the dark sky, its electric light brightened the forest floor. The four glowing blue lights were revealed to belong to the curved heads of mechanical beings. Anthropomorphic to their original creators, these sleek, gray androids traversed over the grass and fallen tree branches on two legs, had three fingered graspers with which they held curved rifles, and had a singular metal antenna attached to each of their backs. They moved methodically, with purpose, each one of them pointing their flashlight-like head in a different direction, searching for someone.

One of them stepped on a shadow. A shadow that took the form of a feminine silhouette perched upon a hanging branch.

The flash of lightning was gone. Darkness returned.

The trampling roar of gunfire pierced through the howling wind and the marching rain. Darkness was beaten back by the flashing nozzles of rifles to reveal the androids simultaneously firing at the same spot: a hole riddled tree branch, torn apart and barely hanging off the trunk by a thin membrane of bark.

The gunfire ceased, but the creaking sound of the broken branch as it swung was never heard over the wailing storm, nor was it seen as the world around the four androids returned to a setting of shadows.

A flash of light.

The form of the shadowy silhouette pounces onto the back of one of the mechanical beings.

It's dark again.

The darkness is soon followed by the sound of flying gunfire, and the tearing of metal.

When it ends, the silhouette stands among a grassy field of broken corpses, sparks flying from the blasted apart bodies of the fallen metallic soldiers. In her hands, a rifle emits smoke from its burning nozzle. This feller of metallic warriors smiles over their laid bodies, happy to see the blue glow of their optic units fading of color, happy to avenge her comrades. Reaching down, she put her hand in a puddle of white liquid that trickled down from the torn scars of one of the bodies. Already being washed away by the falling rain, she put the white coated finger in her mouth, before frowning in displeasure and spitting out the synthetic blood.

So emotionless and uncaring these creatures were that their fallen didn't even have the decency to provide taste and nutrition for her to feast upon.

She grunted dismissively though, it didn't matter to her; just so long as they were destroyed she could care less. They had mercilessly killed everyone, and she planned on doing the same to them.

With that, she leapt into the shadows.

* * *

They had landed in a forest of wind and rain, their black dropship going completely unnoticed in the shadows of the dark clouds. The entire excavation site and the forest surrounding it were completely overtaken by a passing storm. The thick branches of the trees did little to stop the pouring of water from reaching the squad of humans and turian.

Nihlus slammed his back against the moist bark, his rifle at the ready. With a helmet over his head and the built-in night vision, the heavily armed turian was entirely capable of traversing the dark. Slowly, Nihlus peeked out of his cover, his eyes scanning the upper tree branches swaying in the wind, certain that he had seen movement and some sort of glowing light.

After a moment, when nothing unusual presented itself, Nihlus cautiously stepped out from behind the tree. When no high-speed particle pierced his plated head, Nihlus continued his trek through the forest. After he had passed a particular tree an agitated snarl from his right startled him and he came face-to-face with a soaking wet common. Male, bare-naked, and covered in dirt and twigs, the common was an ugly thing and was about to bash Nihlus's skull in.

The common took a step toward Nihlus, before suddenly its face scrunched up in displeasure and it staggered a few steps back away from him.

Nihlus instinctively checked the canister that hanged from his hip. Even in the wind and rain, the smell from the synthesized chemicals in the canister was still potent enough to keep the commons away.

Clicking his radio on, Nihlus said, "Shepard, Nihlus here. You can put your fears to rest the chemicals still work on the commons even in the rain."

"_Yes, I can see that from up here,"_ responded Shepard, her shadowy silhouette just barely visible in the tree branches, _"you know, you kinda look lonely down there. How about I send someone down there to join you?"_

"That won't be necessary," replied Nihlus, "just keep me covered."

"_Suit yourself."_

With an end to that conversation, Nihlus looked at the nearby common to find that it was staring at him, unblinkingly, its head hanging low. It seemed to have been doing that the entire time Nihlus was on the radio.

It was quite unsettling.

Just as Nihlus was about to opt to ignore the mindless thing and move on, some sort of loud, stereo-like sound was heard off somewhere nearby. The common howled furiously at the disturbance and immediately took off in its direction.

"We've got something, I'm moving to investigate," Nihlus stated his intentions over the radio as he quickly followed after the common. It moved franticly between the trees and through the bushes, receiving many cuts and scrapes over its body, which it ignored without a thought.

Eventually it came upon a clearing in the forest. Nihlus didn't follow it into this clearing though, instead he crouched down and slowly hid himself between some bushes at the clearing's edge. Gazing into the clearing, Nihlus found that the common that he followed here wasn't alone, it was intermixed with another seven or so of its kind. They were all congregated in the center of the clearing, each of which were looking up and had their arms raised straight up in the air, as if trying to reach for something.

Like the something that was floating in the air just a few feet above their grasp.

It was a metallic thing with not any jagged edges. Oval shaped, it looked similar to that of a floating eye as it had a glow located on its front center that seemed to serve as its optic unit, and indeed it was also floating in the air through some mass effect technology. Finally, there was some sort of rod that hanged from the floating machine's underbelly, to Nihlus, his combat experience told him exactly what it was and what its purpose is.

Up and down, the machine floated steadily in the rain. Its glowing gaze examined the raging commons below, its thought process a complete mystery to what it saw in the mindless aliens. Suddenly, in a whirring sound, the rod hanging from it lowered to a downward angle, where then a single, particle-sized bullet was ejected out at a high kinetic force and pierced through the head of one of the commons. With bits of brain drooling out the back of its skull, the common flopped on to its back, dead, its body still convulsing in twitches at some left over muscle memory. The floating machine angled itself and fired unto another common in the exact same manner, before methodically turning to another common and repeating the process. The frantic ravings and furious swinging of arms did nothing for the ground-bounded commons as the machine systematically executed each one of them. One particle-sized bullet for each rage-filled head.

Soon, each common was laid dead on the drowning earth, the grass and soil of the ground being turned into mush by the liquid mix of rain and blood. The Virus molecules consuming all of the germs and bacteria from the rain and ground that entered their red puddle, before they too soon died without a proper host to sustain them.

Nihlus activated his radio, "Shepard, I've got visual on a contact. Some sort of V.I. controlled drone that just massacred a group of your commons." He stayed crouched out of sight in the underbrush, waiting for Shepard's reply.

With a _click_ over the radio, he received his reply, _"Acknowledged, can you identify who it belongs to?"_

"Negative," answered Nihlus, "its design isn't anything like the pirate or militarized drones that I'm familiar with." But it _did_ look familiar to him, he could swear that he saw the design somewhere before, he just couldn't remember where from or to whom it belonged.

"_Right, well, keep a low profile and regroup with us, destroying the thing could alert nearby hostiles to our presence."_

"Alright, regrouping with you," said Nihlus as his prone form slowly backed away from the oblivious drone. As a Spectre, this wasn't the first time he had to withhold firing in favor of stealth.

Staying cautious, he kept his rifle pointed toward the floating drone, just in case. The bushes that he moved through ruffled loudly at his passing steps, a danger in of itself as it would alert Nihlus's presence, that is, if it wasn't for the fact that the stormy rain drowned out such miniscule noises with its thunderous downpour.

With darkness and rain covering his steps, Nihlus easily slipped away from the drone unnoticed.

Suddenly, a common bumped into Nihlus's side as it ran towards the floating drone, its garbled howls going over the roaring rain before being immediately silenced by the drones precise shot.

If that common hadn't stumbled into Nihlus, he might have never been noticed. That said, when the common's body hit the forest floor and the drone's light combed over the underbrush until it rested on Nihlus's helmet, he knew that he had hit on a bit of bad luck.

With quick action, the turian spectre pulled the trigger on his assault rifle. Two controlled bursts of fire slammed into the drone's shields, before a third burst pierced through the drone's metal carapace. Faster than the drone could fire back, sparks danced out of its blasted opening and it fell to the earth with a crash.

"Shepard, our cover might be blown. The drone noticed me, I had to destroy it," Nihlus radioed the captain.

"_Shit, what happened?"_

Nihlus eyed the dead body a couple of feet away from him on the ground, "A common tripped over me, it gave away my position."

"_Great…"_ replied Shepard, her voice hinting at a bitterness to the situation, "_hurry up and regroup with us, we're gonna have to pick up our pace on this mission."_

A flash of lightning arced through the sky, bringing light to the shadowy clouds of the storm. And in that instance, when the sky was momentarily brightened, when Nihlus glanced upward at just the right moment, he saw a forewarning to danger, a danger that might have ended him had he not caught it in time.

In the clouds, he saw a cloud that wasn't a cloud. Bulbous it may be, but it was too solidified and form full to be the amorphous, liquid gases that drifted in the sky.

Of a great height directly above Nihlus's head, the non-cloud stayed too much in place. Sensing a kind of familiarity with the object that was not a cloud, the built-in visor on Nihlus's helmet zoomed in for a closer look. From what he could see, the outline of its shadowy silhouette resembled that of some sort of large insect.

Eyes widened in realization when small blips of lights were spotted on its underbelly, and Nihlus hurriedly ducked behind the trees for cover. In the thunderous rain, the sound of whistling wind would have gone unheard by Nihlus, and so if he had not spotted that object in the sky he would have been taken completely off-guard by the metal machine that crashed into the clearing. Uncurling itself from a prone position, the machine's glowing head and quarian-like figure was unmistakable to Nihlus as he identified this invading force. He had only ever seen them as pictures in basic training.

But even as pictures, the geth were an unforgettable force that stayed in the back of any soldier's mind, no matter how unlikely the chances of ever seeing them was.

The infamous legion of AI's that evolved into sapience, rebelled against their creators, before kicking them off their own homeworld and disappearing behind the Perseus Veil for over three centuries.

Until now.

The geth machine ejected by the floating frigate above him was soon followed by several others of its kind as they too firmly landed in the clearing. Readying their assault rifles, the geth soldiers converged onto Nihlus's position.

Bad move on their part.

Swiftly leaning out of cover behind the tree, Nihlus pointed his glowing Omni-tool at the cluster of geth androids and let loose an Overload. Sprays of electricity danced out from three of the geth machines as their software was stalled and their kinetic barriers were lowered. Instead of targeting the weakened trio of geth, Nihlus instead fired his assault rifle at the nearest geth soldier that already had its own rifle aimed at his head. Unloading his rifle's payload into the machine's kinetic barriers and eventually its metal body, the machine dropped to the ground, thoroughly scrapped, while Nihlus's rifle beeped its warning of overheating.

Keeping his overheated rifle in his talons, Nihlus ducked back in cover behind the tree, and, in one swift motion, unholstered his pistol, leaned out the opposite side of the tree, and fired at the three weakened geth soldiers. Their own fire bouncing off of Nihlus's barriers as his pistol shots pierced through their metal plates. When all three laid in the clearing, their torsos filled with holes, Nihlus again took cover behind the thick trunk of the tree as the four remaining geth soldiers fired upon his position. They themselves had retreated behind the trees across the clearing, a logical counter against this turian's unexpected skill in the firefight.

With his rifle cool again, Nihlus blindfired loose sprays of gunfire toward the remaining geth while keeping behind the tree so as to let his kinetic barriers recover. While he did this, he contacted Shepard over the radio, "Shepard! I'm under fire! The invading force is the geth! I repeat, the invading force is the geth! Respond!"

"_Roger that, we're on our way!"_ she responded, her voice serious, _"Just stay alive until we get there!"_

Nihlus leaned out, and with a precise aim, shot a geth trooper with weakened barriers, destroying it. Nihlus smiled, that leaves three, "Don't worry about me, I can handle this easily," he said cockily over the radio.

The ground reverberated under him as he heard a loud crash over the rain and gunfire. Praying to the Spirits that it was just thunder, Nihlus peaked out of cover.

Situated in the center of the clearing, he saw that another geth machine had landed, only this one was much larger than the others. As it uncurled itself from its landing position, Nihlus saw that although its design was very similar to that of the other geth, its shape was a different matter. Raising itself on four legs, each as tall as Nilhus's standing figure, the machine towered over the forest's underbrush like a lumbering dinosaur.

The beast's mechanical head loomed its glowing gaze over to Nihlus's wooden cover.

And by extension, so did too the siege pulse cannon attached to it.

Nihlus clicked on his radio, "On second thought, I'd really appreciate it if you hurried up."

* * *

**Author's Note**

**I am so sorry that it took me almost a month to update. I would've been able to dish out a chapter like this in a week or so, especially now that I'm on summer vacation, but I've been busy practicing my driving and with this particular chapter I had to delete and revise it about FOUR times before I felt it was just right.**

**Also, I recently stumbled upon some amazingly original brony music that, as a fellow brony, really spoke to me. It was also plenty distracting, so… yeah, that happened.**

**Anyways! In the previous chapter, the most common complaint (from the few there were, I'm happy to say) was that this story was following the mass effect story too much. And I CAN see where they are coming from, which is why I hope that this chapter belayed some of those fears with the changes I added.**

**In all honesty, the whole reason why I'm doing this Eden Prime shtick is because I want to give myself and you readers some familiar ground to jump off of before we dive into this new universe.**

**Also, Alyx Shepard is not Alyx from Half-life 2, I just wanted to make that clear.**

**ONTO THE REVIEWS!**

**IveGotNoIdea: **I know what you mean, I truly do. I only ask that you give this story a few more chapters. Like I said above, Eden Prime is just going to be a jumping off point.

**Michae1ange1o:** Yes, the Wookies are indeed an expressive and educated people. I personally enjoy their renditions of Shakespearean play.

**KhazintheDark: **"most people don't make a separate fic purely for their prologue" Why not? George Lucas made three for Star Wars *insert troll face* Anyways, thanks for the comment. Also, Sir Tank comes from **wibblethefish** on Deviantart, although I originally learned it from **IsisMasshiro**'s Left 4 Dead comics, also on Deviantart. The characterization of the Special Infected in **IsisMashiro**'s comics is actually what helped inspire this story.

**Shadowassassin2:** Yeah, Shepard was actually a toss-up between either a huntress or a witch believe it or not. I chose witch in the end for …reasons.

**Question:** Ah, the anonymous user who always has a question. I look forward to answering the many that you will no doubt have in the future, but for now I will simply answer the one you have now: yes, the answer is yes.

**HeidiFox: **Ah, yes. There _will_ be hunters in the _very_ near future.

**MECHANICALCHEESE: **Yes… planning… that's _totally_ what I've been doing the past five months. *shifty eyes* Also, cheers to you too, mate.

**Wanderer101: ***Slaps Wanderer101 over the head with a rolled up newspaper* Bad, Wanderer101! Bad! You go and do that comment over again, and no mistakes this time if you want to pass this class.

**SaltaAstur: **…Wow. Just, wow… I've got to say that comment is definitively in my top five favorites. I just want to thank you for all the praise you're giving me. Thank you, just thank you. I'm glad to know that you find so much enjoyment in reading my story, it warms my heart, it really does. As for ideas, I'm always open to hearing them, just hash them out in the comments or PM me and I'll give them some thought. You might be surprised what gets into my story. And again, thank you so much for the wonderful review.

**I would like to thank everyone who commented and helped this story reach over seventy faves and follows each in the very first chapter.**

**Thank you.**

**Also, I'm curious. How many of you guys actually know that the whole 'exploding twice' thing is actually a My Little Pony joke?**

**Omake**

Situated in the center of the clearing, he saw that another geth machine had landed, only this one was much larger than the others. As it uncurled itself from its landing position, Nihlus saw that although its design was very similar to that of the other geth, its shape was a different matter. Raising itself on four legs, each as tall as Nilhus's standing figure, the machine towered over the forest's underbrush like a lumbering dinosaur.

The beast's mechanical head loomed its glowing gaze over to Nihlus's wooden cover.

And by extension, so did too the siege pulse cannon attached to it.

Nihlus clicked on his radio, "On second thought, I'd really appreciate it if you hurried up."

And then the machine shot Nihlus in the head, dead.

"GETH ARMETURE: SUPERIOR! TURIAN SPECTRE: INFERIOR!"

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember, I'll love you more if you make your reviews longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: this story is nonprofit and the author has no ownership over the characters or setting.

Symptoms

**Eden Prime**

Under the thundering crackle of the rain, particle-sized bullets whizzed through the air at deadly speeds. Such bullets flew past Nihlus's helmeted head and into the mud and trees around him. Like fireworks of dirt, the mud and twigs exploded around Nihlus spectacularly as he twisted and turned through the forest of trees to escape the ire of his metal pursuers.

The three remaining geth soldiers marched through the forest's foliage in pursuit of the fleeing turian, their guns aimed forward and their stride moving unflinchingly through the sharp branches of the bushes. Behind them the lumbering armature followed closely behind with its mass accelerator machine guns releasing their salvo into the black forest. Never ceasing its unrelenting barrage, one of the mechanized quadruped's thinly, spider-like legs collided with a tree, causing it to uproot itself and timber into another tree with a booming crackle of broken bark and branches.

The geth armature stepped over the fallen lumber without a second glance, before targeting with its siege pulse cannon and releasing a tube of blue glowing energy that rocketed toward Nihlus's position.

Leaping widely from his current location and quickly rolling into some bushes before swiftly sprinting in a crouched posture as bullets flew over his head, Nihlus barely escaped the pulse of energy hitting his previous location with a resounding explosion. Nihlus ran through a thick collection of trees that he hoped the armature would have difficulty bypassing.

"Spirits, that was close," breathed out a tired Nihlus as he looked back at the burning devastation. The trees and bushes surrounding the black scorch mark where the explosion took place burned terribly from the crackling fire overlaying them. As the area glowed orange from the burning, Nihlus saw the three geth platforms march over the scorched forest without hesitation, and as their metal silhouettes shimmied from the burning orange they took aim with their rifle and released their salvo onto his position.

"Dammit!" yelled Nihlus, the thick collection of trees that he had taken cover behind proving to be much less sturdier than they had previously appeared to be as the geth's fire pierced through their trunks and branches with relative ease, hitting Nihlus's shields. A second glance revealed a lack of leaves on the branches and graying bark that indicated that he had foolishly taken cover behind some dead trees. With such weak cover, Nihlus crouched low in an attempt to keep his form small and returned fire as best as he could. In his helmet, the HUD display flashed a warning that his shields were going to break if he did not find a reprieve from the bullets.

Luckily for him, relief came in the form of a large blur slamming into the lead geth platform and crashing it into a burning tree. When the momentum ended, the geth soldier found the entirety of its torso in the grip of a large hand. The large hand pulled back and then harshly slammed the geth into the trunk of the tree, its metal torso bending and moaning from the strain as it was crushed. When the geth's lights dimmed and its crushed body thrown to the ground like trash, the form that had done the deed turned around, revealing Jenkins, the charger that Nihlus had spoken to back on the Normandy.

In the light of the burning fire, Nihlus saw that Jenkins was outfitted in his combat gear, which included a set of grenades and a pistol holstered around his waist and a large machine gun strapped to his back. The armor that he wore had broad ceramic plating of a dark grey color strapped over his torso and legs, while a naval blue suit covered the rest of his body. He also had his metal helmet which was shaped similar to that of a gasmask, but with the two eye pieces glowing a neon blue. The helmet also had two air filters that helped it resemble a gas mask so much, but they both faced forward with one on top of the other.

Suddenly, a tall white silhouette landed next to Nihlus's position. It was Kaiden, still decked out in the same white armor that he wore back on the Normandy. Acting quickly, the bottom portion of Kaiden's red-eyed helmet popped open and he shot out a muscled tendril from his mouth. It rocketed across the forest until ensnaring one of the two remaining geth platforms. As the tendril coiled around the geth's form tightly, rendering its mechanical arms useless, the tentacle-like limb was speedily pulled back into Kaiden's mouth, resulting in the geth losing its footing and being dragged across the ground on its back.

While this happened, Nihlus, not one to be struck awestruck for very long, took the opportunity to aim down the sights of his rifle and shoot the remaining geth platform that still stood. Its shields went down quickly in the wake of Nihlus's salvo and its body went down quicker.

Looking back at Kaiden, Nihlus saw that he had the ensnared geth under his heel. Unholstering the submachine gun at his waist, Kaiden let loose a salvo into the metal android, the raining fire punching holes into his elongated tendril just as much as it did the geth platform. The damage he was enacting onto his own appendage did not seem to bother Kaiden, and by the end of his salvo, Kaiden simply bit off the elongated tendril in an almost bored manner.

"Thanks for the assist," said Nihlus as he stood back up straight. With the bottom portion of his helmet snapping closed, Kaiden simply nodded in return.

Jenkins jogged up behind him, "Are you alright?" he asked.

"I'm fine, but those three geth weren't the only ones here…" Nihlus quieted as he looked between the two human soldiers, "Where's Captain Shepard?"

All of a sudden, with a loud creaking groan, a burning tree timbered over as a large mechanical leg stepped into it. The quadrupedal armature had arrived, appearing over the crushed remains of the smaller geth units. Its blue light aimed at the three organisms it towered over. With nothing but broken dead trees between them and the armature, Nihlus was sure that its machine gun fire was about to rip them to shreds.

High up in the branches of the trees that stood tall behind the geth armature, two metal-covered legs ran across the length of a branch before springing into a jump.

The howling wind and drumming rain were suddenly cowed into silence by the entrance of the overbearingly loud boom of thunder, while shadows and darkness were beaten back by the emergence of the shining bolt of lightning striking the sky.

In the new glowing light, a form appeared where there once were shadows. From above and behind the armature, the feminine figure fell through the air gracefully, her arm stretched back behind her, the deadly long claws shimmering from the lightning's glow.

With a metal _clank_, she landed on the back of the large machine, and, not even a moment later, her clawed hand, carried by velocity, emerged from the front of the mechanical beast's neck, right under the equipped pulse cannon. Sparks flew out of the torn hole, the machine's blue light flickered out, and it toppled over like a slain animal.

Pulling out her hand from the metal corpse, she placed a single foot over its torn neck like a victorious poacher would do over his or her own kill, while the three soldiers looked on, taking her in.

The combat suit that she wore was a completely onyx black in color, and it hugged her figure tightly. It wasn't as bulky as either Kaiden's or Jenkins's armor, as the only ceramic plates on her body were located over her arms and legs, while the rest of her figure was strapped in a military-grade fiber suit most likely designed for improved flexibility in close combat situations. A design that was no doubt used to accentuate the lethality of her dangerous claws. And while close combat seemed to be the focus, the suit also had two small gun emplacements on each of her wrists just above her claws. Finally, there was her metal helmet that completely covered her head, with the helmet's black visor stretching across her entire face, concealing her.

Captain Shepard rolled her eyes behind the visor as she saw her three teammates openly gawking at her before lightly kicking the downed armature and walking away. Turning her head back to them as she walked, she quipped, "Yes, I know. I'm _awesome_. Now how about we get out of this forest already before more robots come to terminate us, okay?"

* * *

"So, for three centuries the geth hide behind the Perseus Veil without a peep, and then suddenly, on the _very_ first day of this peace operation, they invade a planet," commented Shepard as she swiped her claws through a thick collection of black vines. She and her team were at the forest edge when they came upon a strange wall of vines that blocked their path, with Shepard deciding to cut a path through with her claws. Pausing, she turned back to her three cohorts, "Now that's just unlucky."

"Yeah, that's an understatement," replied Jenkins, trailing behind her. He brought his small hand out to feel the light droplets of water hit his skin. Although the night was still cloudy and dark as hell, at least the rain was letting up. Jenkins then quickly followed behind Shepard, the broken vines cracking under his heel. Behind him, Nihlus leaned down and picked up a broken off piece of a vine, and peered at it closely.

The vines seemed very strange to Nihlus. Examining the piece in his talons, he felt that it was too stiff to be some type of vine, yet the texture was too soft and squishy to be some kind of bark. Not to mention that the black, almost burnt-like, color of it seemed rather unsettling. And then suddenly, as if answering Nihlus's unease, a stream of blue light coursed through the vine. It seemed to move organically, yet for some reason Nihlus couldn't help but draw a parallel to the moving blue light as a type of circuitry.

"And also, Nihlus said that he saw a drone massacring a horde of commons, he said that it floated above them," continued Jenkins, "so basically: a couple of flying turrets is all that's needed to make our commons useless," he turned his head back, "man, how did you turians not think of that during Shanxi?" Jenkins let out a chuckle before he stopped in mid-step, pausing in thought, "Wait …how did _we_ not figure that out?"

Raising his head, Nihlus looked around at the web-like vines that crisscrossed between the thin trees. Looking closely, he found that every now-and-then a stream of blue energy would glow from inside the vines.

"We figured it out," answered Shepard as she slashed through some more vines, "we just never implemented them because we either didn't have the technology at the time or because the horde wasn't a problem for us anymore. After all, why would-"

_Clang!_

Everyone looked up at the sound of metal being hit, to see Shepard's claws slightly imbedded in the trunk of one of the thin trees. With surprise and confusion on her face that was hidden behind her black visor, Shepard removed her hand before using her claws to scrape off the strange black coating covering the tree to reveal a shiny metal surface. After a moment, the edge of the black coating above the uncovered metal surface glowed blue from some kind of energy that descended from the top of the tree, whereupon thin, mucus-like tendrils stretched down from the black coating to cover the clear patch of the metal surface.

Wordlessly, everyone tilted their head up to see the top of this 'tree.'

"What the fuck?" Captain Shepard muttered under her breath, aghast.

The 'tree' was shaped more like a metal spike than an actual tree, as the tip of it was a very sharp tip.

The human body impaled upon it attested to that.

With the spike embedded through the body's torso, the corpse was in a horrible state. Covered in the same inky black coating that covered the metal spike, the body was also covered in the black vines that the team had been traversing through. Except the body wasn't just covered in the vines, they were jutting out of it, growing from it, the strange vines _originated_ from the body.

But they weren't vines at all, nor were they branches or any kind of plantlike substance. They were something else, something… _wrong_.

They were not in the forest, they haven't been since they started cutting through what they thought were vines. What were once thought of as thin trees were now revealed to be death spikes, carrying bodies horribly mutilated and altered in strange ways.

"I think all of them are your commons," said Nihlus, observing the impaled bodies.

"There's so many," commented Jenkins in a hushed tone, pointing out how many of the metal spikes seemed to stretch for meters before his vision was obstructed by the black tendrils.

"The geth came prepared for our commons," said Shepard, referring to the natural large quantity of commons.

"Yeah, but why do this?" questioned Jenkins.

"I don't know, but I don't plan on asking anyways," answered Shepard as she turned to face her team, "look, it doesn't matter right now. We have our objective, just focus on that, alright? Now let's move out." With that she resumed slicing through the thick collection of not-vines, with Jenkins following behind.

Nihlus was about to follow too, when a hand landed on his shoulder. Turning around to face Kaiden who had been bringing up the rear, Kaiden grabbed hold of the broken-off vine in Nihlus's talons which Nihlus relinquished. For a moment, Kaiden just looked at it, the single red eye of his helmet twisting around the same way a camera lens would do, before he then deposited the piece into a sealed bag that was strapped to his waist.

"For science," he said simply.

* * *

As Shepard and company continued their trek forward, the vine-like tendrils started to thin out, leading the team to believe that the impaled commons around them were made much more recent than the ones before. Either way, this allowed them to reach their destination much faster.

The circular excavation site was very small. Much smaller compared to those grandiose examples usually found in movies. It was also pitifully bland too, as the only noteworthy thing there was an empty pedestal in the center of it. Everything else was obscured under layers of dirt and dust.

The body pile of corpses also helped too.

Then again, the pile of corpses and the half-a-dozen geth troopers probably helped made the excavation site not so bland.

"Four standard geth troopers, two near the center and two by the front, one shock trooper, so it has a shotgun, also near the front, and one sniper unit in the back," listed off Nihlus as the zoom-in function of his helmet helped identify the geth situated in the excavation site. He and the rest were hidden behind some rock outcroppings, obscured from the geth's line of sight.

"Are they doing anything?" Shepard asked, her back against the rock.

Nihlus didn't answer right away, but then, "the ones in the front seem to be setting up some kind of tripod and… one of them has a live common."

Surprised, all three peaked their heads over the rock outcropping to see a common banging against the white geth shock trooper. It was being held by the neck, the geth trooper's mechanical arm lifting the common off of the ground effortlessly, while the commons frantic battering did nothing against the platform's metal chassis as it lifted the common over the flat tripod without a stumble.

Suddenly, an incredibly long spike sprung out of the small tripod device and impaled the flailing common into the air. Its movements becoming even more erratic before finally stilling as it hung limply from the spike.

"Well… that's disturbing," muttered Shepard before turning to her cohorts, "alright, so here's the plan: Jenkins, I want you to-"

"Wait, there's something else down there," interrupted Nihlus.

Emerging into the excavation site was another geth platform very much like the others.

Except only much bigger.

Standing twice as large over the other geth troopers, this geth platform was massive, with each step it took feeling powerful and strong. Along with its excessive size, this large geth unit was also distinct in that it was colored red and instead of a single, blue optical unit that glowed, this geth unit had three, smaller red ones. Frightening enough, the large geth also carried a pulse cannon similar to the armature's in one of its large hands.

And in its other hand was a human female.

"Let me go! You're not going to put me on one of those things, to the Deep with all of you!"

And she wasn't a common.

"Crap, this complicates things," muttered Shepard as she saw the geth troopers set up another of those tripod devices, with the large geth platform heading toward it. Turning to her teammates, Shepard ordered, "Jenkins, Nihlus, aim for the large one's head. Kaiden, snare and pull that sniper, I'll take care of the rest," with that, Shepard leaped over their cover and sprinted toward the excavation site.

Jenkins took the heavy machine gun from his back, held it in his large armored hand and aimed at the giant geth platform. A gun of the size that Jenkins was holding would be difficult to hold steady from its massive recoil, but Jenkins was a charger and his large muscled arm can literally help him accomplish the feat of holding the massive gun steady one-handed. Beside him, as he aimed the powerful weapon's sights on the large geth's head, Nihlus's arm glowed orange.

The geth prime was crouched over and just about to place the screaming human on the device, when it was suddenly hit with an overload, drastically reducing its kinetic barriers as the blue bolts of electricity danced around its form. It was only through its superior hardware that prevented the complete loss of its shields and the subsequent shortening out of its circuitry.

But then came the storm of bullets that pierced through what remained of its kinetic barriers and collided into its optical unit headpiece, its three red lights destroyed. The geth prime stumbled back a few steps from the fire as its vision became impaired. An organic being as large as the geth prime would have instinctively raised a hand in front of its face to protect itself, maybe even run away to blindly look for safety until its companions destroyed its attackers, but the geth were not organic beings and had very little self-preservation sense for their mobile platforms that their software temporarily played host to.

Instead, the smaller geth platforms surrounding it wirelessly transferred visual data to the handicapped geth prime, which is why it was able to accurately aim its pulse cannon at the attacker's position.

Not that it ever got a chance to shoot the gun though, as coupled with the powerful storm of Jenkins's heavy machine gun fire plus the additional support of Nihlus's own assault rifle, who was also expertly aiming at the geth prime's gun held hand which hampered its ability to accurately line up a shot with their position, the geth prime's structural integrity was being whittled down extremely fast. Then, with the sudden added support of a third stream of fire hailing from the sprinting Captain Shepard who had activated the submachine gun emplacements on her arms, the geth prime's hole riddled body was soon toppled over and destroyed.

While this happened, the geth sniper unit at the back of its squad had been lining up a shot on the attackers behind the rock outcropping when suddenly a tendril muscle wrapped around its upper torso, rendering its arms useless and forcing it to drop its sniper rifle. Shepard had ordered Kaiden to ensnare the sniper in back for two reasons: to obviously prevent it from sniping them off from a distance, and secondly, to prevent the two standard geth troopers in the center of the excavation to assist in shooting her as she approached the site.

With a powerful pull, the geth sniper was swung onto its back and was dragged forward, its body colliding into the legs of the two geth troopers in front of it, causing them to trip over the same time the geth prime was felled. With those two temporarily hindered, there were now only three geth platforms shooting at Shepard as she returned fire and attempted to close the distance before her shields failed. While only lightly armored, Shepard was equipped with powerful kinetic barriers to counterbalance this weakness. That said, the geth troopers must have had their assault rifles modified with phasic rounds as her HUD displayed that her kinetic barriers were failing fast.

Shepard prepared for the pain that was no doubt about to come once her shields failed. While a witch's skin was unbelievably tough as proven during the Pandemic when survivors would unleash huge torrents of fire from their twenty-first century guns into a witch's bare skin to little avail, modern day mass accelerator weapons of today on the other hand though are much more powerful than their old chemical combustion counterparts. So Shepard fully expected to gain a few open wounds from this fight, especially from that shock trooper's shotgun when she got to close range, but it was too late to turn back for cover now, she had to bite the bullet and engage them now.

And then suddenly, the geth shock trooper was pounced.

After the geth prime was toppled over, the caught huntress was able to break free from the prime's dead grip and quickly set her sights on the nearest enemy, which just so happened to be the shock trooper. Crouching down before leaping with arms forward into the white geth unit, she grabbed the fallen shock trooper by its shoulders and slammed it into the ground once, then twice, before ripping its shotgun from its grip and shooting it at point blank range. She then twisted her body to shoot the geth trooper to her immediate left in the chest two times, before spinning around to do the same to the other one, only to find that it had a big gaping hole in its chest courtesy of Shepard's claws jutting through it.

Only pausing for a second at the sight, the huntress wasted no time leaping over with a snarl to the two remaining geth troopers that had been tripped over, before blasting her recently acquired shotgun into both of them repeatedly until it overheated.

Pulling her clawed hand out of the dead geth, Shepard looked behind her to see her teammates exiting from behind their rock cover to join her at the small excavation site, with Kaiden stalled behind them as he blistered holes into the remaining geth unit that he had ensnared. Shepard then turned back to the huntress and calmly walked over, as she did so she automatically accessed her helmet and cleared up her black visor until her face was visible behind it.

"That was some quick thinking there, pouncing on that geth, I mean. Thanks for that, by the way," said Shepard, complimenting the huntress. At this, the huntress turned around to face her and Shepard took her appearance in fully.

It seemed that she was a soldier as she was outfitted in combat armor. Besides the geth shotgun in her claws though she had no weapons or gear on her, most likely whatever she had was taken from her when she was captured. The combat armor itself was very similar to Shepard's own, except that huntress's was coated in a red and black color instead of just black, and where Shepard only had a fiber suit covering her chest, the huntress also had a breastplate with a melted black goat skull emblem escribed onto it.

What was most eye-catching though was the animal skull serving as her helmet, covering everything but the bottom portion of her head, allowing the feminine lips to just be in view.

Actually, Shepard suspected that that helmet wasn't a real skull as bone would offer very poor protection in a firefight. The white ceramic helmet was just shaped and designed to look very similar to the skull of a beast's, it even had curved horns that stretched back behind her head. Unlike a natural animal's skull though, the eyeholes of the skull-like helmet, with which were covered by dark visors, were much more front-forward than they naturally would be. A design choice that was undoubtedly made to prevent the wearer's vision from being hampered in combat. In addition, the skull helmet also had black tufts of hair that trailed down the wearer's back

In all of this description, the skull helmet and the black and red armor really gave the huntress a demonic visage, which was most likely the intended purpose.

"It was no problem," the huntress replied to Shepard's compliment in a voice of genuine sincerity that really seemed out of place with her threatening attire, "but really, I should be thanking _you_ for saving my ass from being impaled on that death spike. So, thank you."

"It was no problem," replied Shepard, repeating the huntress's own words, "I'm Captain Alyx Shepard of the Normandy, by the way."

"Gunnery Chief Ash Williams of the twenty-second infantry division, ma'am," the huntress introduced herself with a nod.

"Ash, eh? So I'm guessing you're not Territory Defense considering the Aires tribe isn't even on Eden Prime?" asked Shepard, her claw pointing to the huntress's goat skull emblem on her chestplate.

"No, ma'am. I'm with the Planetary Armed Forces," she answered, her tone hinting at surprise that Shepard even recognized her tribe.

"Shepard!" called Nihlus, gaining the attention of both of the female humans as he walked up to them, "The beacon isn't here, we need to- HEY!" his sentence was cut-off as his kinetic barriers flared up to protect him from the buckshot that was shot out of the huntress's shotgun.

"Whoa! Hey, weapons down!" commanded Shepard as she grabbed Ash's shotgun and pointed the nozzle up into the air where the shots would do no harm, "He's on our side!"

The huntress known as Ash turned her skull covered gaze toward Shepard, "Our side? What do you mean our side?" her tone seemed be filled with restrained anger.

"He's a friendly, that's what I mean!" Shepard informed loudly, "He works with us on a peace operation between our two governments. So no blue-on-blue you got me?"

Ash stared at Shepard, her posture and body expression seeming less sure of the situation. She set her skull covered gaze on Nihlus for a brief moment, where Kaiden and Jenkins now stood by his side, before returning her gaze to Shepard, "So this alien isn't with the other one?"

Silence stretched across the group for the length of an extra-long blink.

"…Other one?" a confused Nihlus asked behind Shepard. Turning her head back, Shepard and Nihlus exchanged a momentary glance before both turned back to face the huntress, an expression of bafflement clear on Shepard's face while Nihlus's own was hidden behind his helmet.

"What other one?" they both asked.

"The one that leads these invaders," the huntress answered.

"The geth are following an organic being?" puzzled Shepard, "How can you be sure?"

"Because I saw him," she answered resolutely, "When everyone was either dead or gone, and I was the only left, I hunted the invaders down and killed them until I found him. He was heading toward the spaceport. I saw him yell out his orders at the geth, and they followed."

"Describe him to me," commanded Nihlus, taking a step forward, "What did he look like?"

She thought for a second and her lips parted open to answer before snapping shut and turning to Shepard, "Hey, can you let go of my gun now? I'm not going to shoot again, okay?"

Shepard relented her grip on the huntress's weapon, allowing her to bring it back down to her waist. "Sorry," apologized Shepard.

"Okay," Ash looked back at Nihlus, "the leader was of the same build as you, with three fingers and backward legs."

"_So he's a turian," _thought Nihlus, "go on."

"His whole body was grey," she described, "his armor was grey, and his face was grey."

"He didn't wear a helmet? What were his colony markings?" Nihlus asked.

"Colony markings?" the huntress sounded confused, her skull covered head tilting to the side at an angle in such confusion.

Bringing a talon to the bottom of his helmet, Nihlus clicked a switch and removed the helmet from over his head, revealing his face to her. "These," he said, pointing to the white markings that zigzagged across his face, "did he have markings similar to these on his face, or were they different? Did they have a different color, different style?"

Surprisingly, she just shook her head in the negative, "I didn't see any such markings on his face, I don't think he had any."

"_Barefaced!"_ Nihlus thought, surprised at the knowledge, "That could really help in identifying this guy later on. Anything else?"

Her posture tightened, and her tone contained an ire of irritation, "When I leapt to attack him, he lifted me up with some kind of blue energy. That's how I was captured." It seemed she was bitter about that detail.

"So he's a turian, barefaced, and a biotic," Nihlus summarized, "that'll really help narrow down identifying him."

"Good, because we can do that later," interrupted Shepard, "right now we've got a beacon to secure." She turned to the huntress, "Ash, do you know where the prothean beacon was taken?"

"The spaceport," she answered.

"Where you said the alien leader was going to," stated Kaiden.

"Yes."

"So he's already got a head start on us, _great_," lamented Shepard, before focusing back on the huntress and regaining a commanding air about her, "Ash, do you know the fastest way to get there?"

The huntress smiled deviously, her visible lips pulling back to show sharp canines, "I know a shortcut."

"Then you take point," Captain Shepard commanded, "move out!"

"Yes, ma'am," she said, seemingly giddy at the prospect of revenge, before swiftly moving in the direction of the shortcut that she knew will help them bypass the geth ahead of them. She then halted her movement to turn back to Nihlus who was in the process of putting his helmet back on, "Oh! I almost forgot, the alien leader also had a metal arm like the geth, instead of a natural one. Hope that helps," she then returned to her pace at the front of the squad.

Nihlus meanwhile had frozen in his movements, his talons still securing his helmet atop of his head as he went over just what he learned.

The alien leader was a turian, had no colony markings, was a biotic, _and_ had a synthetic arm.

Yes, that really did narrow down the identity of the alien leader.

It narrowed it down to exactly _one_ person.

One person that Nihlus was well acquainted with.

Wordlessly, Nihlus finished securing his helmet and quickly followed behind Shepard.

Kaiden soon followed Nihlus, and Jenkins was about to do the same when his first foot forward landed on something he didn't expect and almost caused him to trip over and fall down before he righted himself. Looking down at what had almost caused him to fall over, Jenkins felt his eyebrows rise up in surprise behind his gasmask-like helmet.

Those raised eyebrows were soon joined by a rising grin as he reached down to pick up what Jenkins would call his first act of corpse looting.

* * *

**Author's Note**

**BAM! Third chapter! It took me what? Three weeks to finish this? That's an improvement from last chapter's entire month, at least.**

**Anyways, ARMOR! Lots of description of armor in this chapter. Jenkins and Kaiden's armor is based off of the combine armor from Half-life 2, with I'm going to say Jenkins armor being the Collective's standard issue armor for its soldiers in the military. Kaiden's armor is standard issue for the security forces in R&D, which some of you probably already guessed correctly if you paid attention in First Infection's eleventh chapter. Ash's and Shepard's armor I'm probably going to say that they're close-combat specialist armor, but with each of them adding their own unique variation to their armor.**

**Also, Ash(ley) isn't a marine in this story because I don't believe in Bioware's: a navy's orbital superiority and a marine detachment will solve every military problem in existence. More on that later…**

**ONTO THE REVIEWS!**

**Jeggetts: **Husks and unique variants, eh? Well, what happens to humans when spiked is definitely unique, I'll say.

**SaltaAstur: **thanks for another compliment, and don't worry, things are happening right now, I think.

**Zikarn Krais:** Will Saren kill Nihlus? …_Maybe!_

**Ridtom: **Boomer bile is still used to attract commons, and humanity still uses it. It's just that the chemically synthesized one that Nihlus has is too intense for commons to get near. I'll explain this in more detail in a later chapter.

**Question: **Holy shit. Okay, first off, thanks for the compliments, they mean a lot to me. Second, spell and grammar check your comment, it took me awhile to understand it. I'm sorry! I don't usually say that because I'm always afraid that I'll unintentionally insult someone who doesn't speak English as a first language, and that always makes me feel like I'm being inconsiderate, but I'm confident that you (hopefully) won't take it the wrong way, because I've seen your previous reviews and they were quite decent. Thirdly, I want you to get a profile on this site so that I can PM you these answers, because you have too many question and my answers to these questions will be too rife with spoilers on a simple author's note where everyone can see them. Fourth, thanks for the invite to that website, I checked it out but forums really aren't my kind of thing. Still might check it out every now and though, so thanks. Again, I'm sorry I couldn't answer any of your questions, but I just don't want to risk the spoilers. Obtain a profile and PM me, and then I'll answer them.

**Omake**

The joke is that there's no omake this chapter.

Hey, don't look at me like that! And stop that groveling! I supplied you guys _dozens_ of omakes in a story that didn't really require them to begin with, sometimes two or three per chapter. How many omakes have you guys given me, huh? Yeah, that's what I thought. So excuse me if I decide to skip a chapter every now and then.

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember, I'll always love you if you make your review longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: this story is nonprofit and the author has no ownership over the characters or setting.

Symptoms

**Eden Prime**

"ETA to port is fifteen minutes."

Shepard looked over toward Kaiden at the sound of his even voice. He hadn't looked at her when he said it, not entirely at least, his head had slightly drifted toward her general direction, but other than that he kept his back to her as he interacted with the control interface at the front of the train.

Said train moved speedily down the single monorail that it was connected to as everything around it blurred from the travel speed. The train itself was rectangular and flat, and its open-top layout indicated that it was specifically designed for cargo transport instead of personal. Yet, due to odd circumstances, it was personal instead of cargo that the train found itself carrying toward its destination that day as Shepard's team were the only ones present on the mechanized transport.

Well, them and the dozen-or-so geth troopers that lay beaten and torn at their heels. Their blue lights dimming to blackness and their bodies reigning hollow as the geth programs that had once controlled them fled across their wireless network.

Captain Shepard leaned herself over the waist-high wall that served as the train's railing. Her long, blonde hair following behind her flowingly as the train sped on in the wind. The visor-helmet that she wore currently sitting by her feet, as she had taken it off to munch on the ration bar in her claws that she may-or-may-not-have laced with extra sugar at an earlier time.

A bite, followed by the corners of her mouth curling upwards into a smile of enjoyment as she chewed softly.

She swallowed.

"I'd like to get there faster, if you would please," she replied, the smile still there, "we are in a hurry after all."

There it was again. That slight nudge of his head in her general direction that indicated he was listening.

"Right away, ma'am," he replied simply, his right arm glowing silver as he activated his iTool and injected some programs into the train's control panel that certainly wouldn't have been approved by the Administrative Office of Transportation.

Steadily, the train increased in speed.

Grabbing her helmet, Shepard fastened it upon her head securely. Strangely though, she did not make any attempt to bundle her hair into the helmet, instead letting the long strands of her blonde hair to escape out of the bottom folds of the helmet and sway about in the wind.

"Are we planning on keeping her?" asked Kaiden suddenly, this time he did turn to her, his red-eye helmet gazing at her.

Turning her head away from him, Shepard glanced down the train cars to find Ash talking to Nihlus just a few cars behind her. Facing Kaiden again, she gave him a sincere smile that was only visible after she cleared her darkened visor.

"Our culture holds survivors in high value, you know this and I know this, it's been a staple across all of humanity since we survived the Pandemic," she answered, "and in my long life I've learned from experience that lone survivors of terrible events do in fact make resourceful allies."

"She shot Nihlus," Kaiden pointed out, "she doesn't seem very stable."

Her smile never left, but it did seem more somber now, "…We've all got our little problems," she replied, before becoming more serious, "but don't worry, once we're back on the Normandy we'll have Kelly take care of her."

Kaiden's posture seemed to indicate that he was only somewhat satisfied with that, "I just don't want to be speared in the back by a crazy tribal, that's all."

"I think Ash is a smart enough soldier to just shoot you with her guns if she wanted to kill you," Shepard remarked playfully, "and besides Kaiden that's just a stereotype, you should know that not _all_ tribals are anarchistic luddites."

He crossed his arms, "Just the ones I'm familiar with."

Shepard frowned, "This isn't going to be a problem, is it? Or am I going to have to sick Kelly on you too?"

"No, ma'am," said Kaiden evenly, "I'll work with her without complaint."

"_Yeah, we'll see,"_ she thought before replying, "Good."

Meanwhile, as Shepard and Kaiden had their little talk, Nihlus and Ash were making their own conversation at the center of the train. Ash was crouched down over a couple of geth corpses, inspecting their weapons and comparing and contrasting with the ones she had looted. The geth had taken her own weapons when she was captured, and now she had to build up her arsenal again. While she did this, she tried to ignore the turian spectre leaning against the train railing, staring at her in awkward silence as he thought of what to say to the person who willingly shot at him.

…Maybe conversation is too strong of a word.

"That was a nice shortcut," spoke Nihlus, attempting to break the silence, "the maintenance tunnel took us right under the station, the geth didn't see us coming."

"Damn techies wouldn't shut up about how much they had to keep going down there," replied Ash, her tone sounded angry and bitter, "didn't see any of them down there though."

Nihlus didn't reply. The silence between them was much tenser now. So much so that when Jenkins walked by to ask the Captain how much longer this was going to take, he practically shivered.

He kept on walking though, he wasn't going to get involved in that.

After Jenkins walked away, Ash breathed out a resentful sigh, her body deflating in posture as she let the air pass through her lips. Turning her gaze toward Nihlus, her animal-skull-like helmet obscured most of her expression except for her lips and lower jaw, which squared in irritation.

"Look, I'm not going to say that I'm sorry for shooting you," Ash's voice had an edge to it, "but I will admit that I shouldn't have done that, alright?"

Nihlus crossed his arms at her.

"You intentionally shot against a foreign soldier who was an obvious friendly and you can't even muster to say that you're sorry? You'll be lucky to only get a court martial after this is done!"

That's what Nihlus should have said. That's what anyone in his situation would have demanded.

But he didn't say or do any of that.

He didn't say one word of it.

Because Nihlus was experienced enough to recognize a traumatized soldier when he saw one.

"I… I just saw my entire squad, my _family_, get killed today," she wasn't looking at him anymore, she was staring off at the blurring horizon, "_He_ did that, he may not have personally pulled the trigger, but he's still responsible for their deaths. When I found him at the station, I saw him execute the scientists and civilians that they had captured. No mercy, no hesitation, just a quick shot to the head, if even that. I wanted to kill him so badly," her head shook solemnly before speaking again, "after I was captured, I was only spared from the same fate because I think the geth wanted to see if their spikes would react differently with me." She wasn't sure why they didn't do the same to the civilians, but it probably had something to do with the timing. She was literally being squeezed to death by that giant geth when it suddenly lit up and said, "New data," before walking off with her screaming self.

"So I was angry, alright?" Her gaze swiftly returned to him as a bitterness returned to her voice, "I'm human, I've never had the opportunity to get use to you aliens and when I saw you, the only other _turian_ I've ever seen in my life, when I noticed that you're the same species as that bastard, I thought… I just got so angry that I… _I blanked_, I wasn't thinking."

Once again, silence reigned between the two as the rumbling sound of the moving train reverberated around them.

The sound of a click occurred in both of their helmets as Shepard's voice was heard over the radio,_ "Three minutes until we reach our destination. Ash, Nihlus, I want you guys up here with the rest of the team."_

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then Nihlus pushed away from the railing and walked away from her, letting the words escape from his alien mandibles.

"Just don't let it happen again."

His fleeting steps echoed through her ears as she stayed crouched over the geth remains, before she let out a light huff of content. Grabbing one of the longer rifles from the pile of geth corpses, Ash stood and turned on her heel to follow.

* * *

**Normandy, CIC**

"What do you _mean_ there was a dreadnought on Eden Prime?"

With a frown, Jeff "Joker" Moreau, self-proclaimed (and just generally all-around proclaimed) ace pilot of the Normandy, looked over his shoulder from his pilot seat toward the disgruntled military captain.

"Well, Captain Anderson, when I said that the ship's scanners have indicated that there was a dreadnought class ship on the nearby planetoid, a.k.a. Eden Prime, what I _really_ meant by that is that I found a tank fucking a boomer." Joker answered the captain in absolute sarcasm before letting out an angry outburst, "What the Hell do you _think_ I meant by that? There was a dreadnought on Eden Prime, sir!"

"Don't get snippy with me, Lieutenant, this isn't the time for it," Captain Anderson barked back, "Why didn't we pick it up when we first scanned the system?"

Joker tabbed on the holographic interface before him to reveal a hologram of the globe of Eden Prime. He then pointed toward the hurricane circling over at a corner of the planet, "Its signature was hidden in the storm, sir. The scanners only ever picked it up when it launched itself from the planet's surface." As he said that, a blip appeared next to the holographic globe, right over the center of the already disappearing storm, and arced into space, its estimated coordinates seemed to be destined for this system's mass relay.

Laying his large hand over the top of Joker's seat, Captain Anderson leaned in closer to the hologram to better read the statistical data that was posted next to the moving blip. Included in this data was the object's movement speed and, much more noteworthy, its size and mass.

"That can't be possible," proclaimed Anderson, "how can a dreadnought of that size be able to land on a planet, its element zero core would have to be unbelievably powerful."

Joker put his arms up in mock surrender, "Hey, I'm just telling you what the scanners told me, I'm not the expert here."

Anderson just sighed irritably at the situation before his eyes locked onto the moving blips orbiting the hologram. Pointing to them, he said, "The unknown frigates are following the dreadnought. Once they exit through the mass relay, position the Normandy over Shepard's position and try to contact her."

"Yes, sir," replied Joker, and as he said so, the holographic globe before him disappeared and he ran his hands through the control interface, guiding the Normandy to its ordered position.

As Joker effortlessly piloted the Normandy, Captain Anderson turned and walked down toward the galaxy map. His glazed white eyes glanced over the paltry number of crewmen that operated over the various consoles that stretched across the Normandy's interior walls. There were only barely half-a-dozen on the CIC, mostly hunters and smokers, the small number attributed to the reminding fact that the Normandy wasn't at its full readiness, and won't be until the rest of its assigned crew, its _alien_ crew, arrived when it docked with the Citadel.

Anderson soon found himself in front of the galaxy map, with the Normandy's executive officer nearby.

"You sure do take charge fast, sir," the spitter commented humorously.

Knowing that this was the person that would be commanding the Normandy whenever the Captain and the Spectre went groundside, Anderson couldn't help but comment on his own initiative, "Sorry about that, Pressly. With Shepard on Eden Prime, _you're_ supposed to have the helm. I guess being on a ship again has just brought out some old habits of mine."

"No need to apologize, Sir," Pressly informed him, "the captain left us _both_ in charge, and military command is quite clear on rules of seniority."

"Mm, true, but as a retired captain acting as an ambassador's advisor, I'm not exactly part of the usual chain-of-command," said Anderson.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I won't inform command in my report that the Normandy was temporarily commandeered by a grizzled, old retiree while the captain was away," replied Pressly as he grinned with amusement, "of course, they probably wouldn't care if it's _you_. After all, who's going to argue with Captain Anderson? The same Captain Anderson that successfully held off a feral assault with only three frigates."

Anderson smiled knowingly before frowning at Pressly's closing remark, "Pressly, you and the crew were briefed on this. The feral are one of the few subjects that must not be openly discussed on the Normandy, or in the presence of aliens."

"Sorry, sir," apologized Pressly with his own frown, "I just thought that with Nihlus groundside and no other alien onboard…"

"It's better to just not take the chance," chided Anderson, "after all, the Citadel aliens are already disgusted with us for what we have to do just to stay sane. Letting them discover the feral will only worsen our relations with them."

"I understand, sir, but…" Pressly looked hesitant. Looking around warily, he leaned forward and lowered his voice cautiously, "but aren't we only delaying the inevitable here? Stuff like the feral, along with the Director and Advisors weren't exactly national secrets by the time we encountered the Citadel races. Over the years the Collective kept lowering the required rank, both military and administrative, that allowed a person access to the Director and Advisors' true identity. It's gotten to the point where even someone like Joker, _Joker_," Pressly repeated for emphasis, "is allowed to know who and what they are. And the feral were never a well-kept secret to begin with. Before the turians invaded, dealing with the feral was the military's number one priority."

Anderson nodded solemnly at Pressly's words. It was true. Lieutenants, administrative department heads, territory leaders, and privileged scientists, they and everyone above them knew of the Director. Not to mention, how often had they spoken of the Director's true identity in front of those not cleared for that information and barely received anything more than a slap on the wrist? That kind of leniency was going to get the Collective in trouble someday. Humanity may be ready for the truth about the Director, but the Citadel races may not like that truth.

And _every_ human has at least heard of the feral. They're nearly impossible to not talk about, especially when a family gets a letter of grievance from the military stating that their child, sibling, or whomever was killed in the line of duty defending against a feral attack. It's worse when it's Missing-in-Action, or when the military claims that they could not recover the body. The family becomes hysterical when they assume the worst has happen, something worse than death, not that Anderson can blame them for their reaction.

As terribly kept these secrets were, they were much easier to hide from the Citadel races, and all the other races of the galaxy for that matter, when aliens were forbidden from landing on human controlled planets and public communications with them were kept at a minimum.

When this peace project was proposed, the discovery of these secrets definitely increased in risk, but the Collective government still saw this as a manageable situation.

But then Nihlus unveiled that canister to them and told them that the Citadel scientists have created a way for aliens to walk among human planets, to bypass the danger of the commons. Now the Citadel taskforce will be able to join the Normandy's squad on human planets, interact with the locals, and increase the chance of discovery.

Pressly was right, it was inevitable.

With a fond smile, Captain Anderson laid his large hand on Pressly's shoulder in a reassuring way, "Pressly," he said smoothly, "you may be right, but we're soldiers. And sometimes, delaying the inevitable is all we can do, all we _have_ to do."

Pressly frowned at that, but he also nodded in understanding at the Captain's words.

"_Captain Anderson,"_ Joker's voice reigned over the intercom, _"All unknown ships have exited through the system's mass relay and the Normandy is now over Captain Shepard's coordinates. I am now attempting to contact the ground team."_

"Go ahead," Anderson replied, his head tipping upward at Joker's voice.

"_Normandy to ground team, does anyone copy? What is your status? Respond."_

Immediately the sound of gunfire perforated the Normandy's intercom, _"Normandy, this is Shepard, the team's fine, but my current status is pissed off!"_

"_Really? Care to elaborate on that?" _Anderson couldn't see it from here, but he was sure that Joker was wearing a cheeky grin at the Captain's attitude.

"_Yeah! I want to know what kind of paranoid bastard arms SEVEN nukes in one location! I mean, there's overkill, and then there's just wasting the resources that you have!"_ Suddenly, a louder stream of gunfire was introduced to the overall noise. Anderson suspected that the added gunfire came from Shepard's own submachine guns, _"KAIDEN! I don't care how many of them there are, just run across that platform and deactivate that nuke! Jenkins, why don't you use that new toy you're so fond of to give him some covering fire!"_

For a while, gunfire and explosions became dominant over the intercom before Shepard responded again, _"Normandy, I'm a bit busy at the moment. How about I call you later?"_

"…_Yeah, roger that,"_ replied Joker, a bit put off at the mention of nukes, _"call us if the mission failed or not."_

"_Oh, trust me, you'll know if I failed."_

* * *

With a resounding _clamp_, Kaiden slammed the metal covering closed over the exposed mechanical innards of the nuclear device that he had just finished deactivating. It was the seventh one, the last one, at least according to their suits' battle scanners.

His task over, he turned himself around and leaned against the rectangular device that had nearly obliterated him and the surrounding area. Grimacing in pain, Kaiden grasped his left leg tenderly, where three torn holes bled a bloody river down his side. When he had ran across that platform, some of the geth firing at him found their mark, beating down his barriers and finding the gaps in his armor. Turns out that Jenkins's covering fire didn't perform as well as the Captain thought it would be.

_Bang!_

Kaiden shot his head up as his kinetic barriers flared out from the buckshot. Standing before him was a geth shock trooper, banged and bulleted from the firefight, but still quite functional and dangerous. With shotgun in hand, it was priming to shoot again. Quickly taking out his submachine gun, Kaiden aimed at the geth from his prone position, knowing quite well that at this range the geth's shotgun would outperform his own weapon.

Then suddenly, a small explosion rocked the geth's backside. It stumbled forward at the impact, its blue light flickering at the damage before finally going dark and letting its body fall forward before Kaiden.

Laying facedown, at least for what it accounted as its face, the geth platform's metal chassis groaned from the sudden added pressure of a boot landing on its back.

Jenkins stood atop the fallen geth trooper victoriously, head held high, and his large arm lofting the pulse cannon that he had stolen from that geth prime.

"Man, I sure do love this thing," Jenkins said with a smile behind his helmet, gesturing toward the cannon in his arm.

Kaiden only groaned painfully as he lowered his own gun, "Why couldn't you shoot like _that_ when you were giving me covering fire."

"Hey, it's _covering fire_," Jenkins cried out indignantly, "you're supposed to shoot at the entire squad, fuck aiming, and hope that they have enough common sense to lower their heads and take cover. How was I supposed to know that they were going to just ignore the explosions around them?"

"I could've told you that," said Ash, walking out from behind Jenkins, "these… _geth_, don't seem to care much for staying alive, the dangers of combat don't frighten them as it would like us. …I had to learn that the hard way."

Jenkins turned toward her, "Yeah, I guess you're right, I mean they're robots. They're not exactly alive in the first place, so I doubt they're really scared of anything."

Lying on the ground, his leg bleeding from open wounds, and in front of both of them, Kaiden chuckled out a painful laugh. He laughed because he found what Jenkins said funny.

Long, deadly claws encircling his wounded leg silenced his low laugh as he hissed back the pain. After a moment, Captain Shepard pulled her claws back, now covered in blood, and gave Kaiden a warm smile.

"Well, good news is that it's not so bad," she said chirpily, "look, the bleeding is already starting to stop," she pointed a bloody claw at the open wounds, where the blood flow was becoming thinner, "just take some pills and you'll be fine."

"Shepard!"

The group looked up to find Nihlus walking briskly toward them. Stopping, he pointed a talon over his shoulder.

"I've found the beacon."

* * *

Leaving the others to take care of recovering the deactivated nukes for evidence, Shepard followed Nihlus to the edge of the spaceport, where they stood still.

Standing side-by-side, Spectre Nihlus and Captain Shepard looked on resolutely at the towering spire that was their objective. Before them, situated at the edge of the spaceport, stood the protheon beacon; tall, thin, and yet strangely monolithic also. It gave off an alluring and at the same time foreboding aurora that was only helped by its vast backdrop of rolling green pastures and the burning starship corpses that proliferated the destroyed shipyard behind it. It seemed to be glowing with power.

The fact that it was also quite literally glowing probably helped too.

Some kind of green energy surrounded the prothean beacon, causing the air around it to shimmer and its circuitry that flowed up and down its form to glow green also.

"Is it supposed to do that?" asked Shepard curiously. She did not seem to be put off by the empowering beacon, only cautious.

"I'm not sure," admitted Nihlus, before shrugging away his worries, "but finding out is not our job. I'm certain that the Citadel scientists will tell us once we hand it over to them and they've examined it."

"Along with Dr. Kleiner," added Shepard.

"Right, Dr. Kleiner too," amended Nihlus before putting a talon to the side of his helmet, "Normandy, this is Nihlus. We have located the beacon and request a pickup."

"_Hey! You guys didn't blow up! That's good to know,"_ Joker's voice proclaimed cheerfully over the radio, _"Is everyone alright down there?"_

"The team is A-Okay, Joker," answered Shepard over her own radio, "Kaiden's whining over his leg getting a bit scraped, but other than that we're all fine down here. We've also picked up a friendly. She survived the initial attack and was invaluable in helping us recover the beacon, so I'd like to assign her to the Normandy."

"_Is she hot?"_

A smirk, "Don't worry, Joker. She's not as attractive as you, so you can stop being jealous."

"_Good!" _Joker replied in mock haughtiness, _"because I work hard to perfect this five-o'clock shadow and I will not be upstaged by some newbie."_

"Right…" said Shepard knowingly, "so how about you come down and pick us up. We're at the spaceport near the shipyard, so there's plenty of room for you," at her own words, Shepard started absentmindedly walking toward the edge to look over the field.

"_Roger that."_

Nihlus, having listened to all of that, just shook his head, "That pilot of yours sure is full of himself isn't he?"

She couldn't move, she couldn't speak, no matter how hard she struggled.

"…Shepard?"

At the continuing silence, Nihlus looked over to Shepard to find the captain unmoving, surrounded in a green glow. The same green glow that the prothean beacon was giving off.

And then, through some unknown, maybe biotic, force, Shepard was levitated off the ground and into the air. With arms painfully outstretched and her long claw splayed open, Shepard floated a meter off the ground and just a few feet away from the beacon.

"Shepard!" Nihlus yelled out as he ran toward the beacon, before stopping, unsure of what he could do in this situation.

Meanwhile, as Shepard struggled fruitlessly in the air, a single green light flared at the top of the beacon. With this light, Shepard cried out in startled pain as she felt some sort of pressure inside of her head. But before it even really began, suddenly the pain stopped to Shepard's surprise. She still felt something though, like something was going inside of her head, inside of her brain, but whatever that was, it didn't seem to be taking hold, it wasn't affecting her.

Then, as unexpectedly as it had started, it stopped.

The green glow disappeared from Shepard's form and gravity took ahold of her again, forcing her to fall onto her back.

"Ow!" cried out Shepard, much more from indignation than from any actual form of pain. Standing back upright on her feet, Shepard stared cautiously at the beacon that had just lifted her off the ground before callously throwing her back down for what seemed to be no reason whatsoever.

"…Huh," she analyzed intellectually.

She turned around to look at Nihlus, who was giving her a look that, even across different species, spoke volumes of his confusion and bafflement.

Knowing full well that he too would very much like to know what just happened, Shepard lifter her arms and shoulders into a shrug that spoke, "I have no idea what just happened either."

And then, out of nowhere, the beacon exploded.

"Ah, fuck!" shouted Shepard as she flinched at the resounding explosion near her. The green and black debris flew and landed around her, with some of the more smaller, particle-sized remains sticking to her armor.

"Shit," cursed Shepard as she wiped the stuff off of her, before looking at the sparkling nub that was the remains of the once prothean beacon, "well Goddamn it, that just ruins my day."

* * *

**Author's Notes**

**Hey there, fourth chapter! I was planning to spend more time on this chapter, but I'm about to go on a short **_**family**_** vacation, so I thought, "fuck it," and decided to finish it now.**

**So the beacon exploded, and Shepard didn't seem to get anything out of it. Weird, huh?**

**Also…**

**NIHLUS AND JENKINS LIVE! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE FUTURE!**

**I'm honestly not sure.**

**ONTO THE REVIEWS:**

**Jeggets: **The Collectors? Nothing. Nothing is stopping them from doing such a thing. Isn't that such a wonderful thought?

**Ozkarus: **Portal technology comes later.

**mass-defect:** The timing of your comment was perfect, it was hilarious.

**Kira Kyuu: ** WISH GRANTED!

**Barber477: **In posting comments, you're not the best I've seen, but you still do better than me. (translation: at least you post something, I barely ever post a comment or a review. I'm such a hypocrite.)

**Gnurd: **There have been no Asari/human relationships, mostly because of the seclusion from the rest of the galaxy that the humans have been living in. As for the rest of your questions, they will be explained and explored later in the story.

**KhazintheDark: **Commons like the smell and run toward it. They may not like the thing covered in the bile though, after all, it's not the bile itself that causes the commons to be violent.

**Question: **The entire first part of this chapter was dedicated to recovering from that discrepancy, because when I read your review my face met the palm of my hand and I realized that you were probably right about that. I'm pulling out the angry and traumatized card for Ash. That said, I'm sure that's there's just a tiny bit more leniency on friendly fire here than there is now, what with the advent of kinetic barriers, but probably not that much to defend my case here. Update plan is whenever I can, and with a crude outline of "this happens" from here to all the way to the end of ME3. Of course, parts of this crude outline get destroyed and have new parts added in nearly every time I post a chapter.

**I've decided that I'm not going to write an omake for every chapter now. I'm sorry, but they were starting to feel forced. This doesn't mean that I'm quitting omakes entirely, I'm just taking it easier now. Besides, I think I'm actually putting more of my humor into the actual chapters now, so hopefully the comedy in the chapter itself will keep you guys satisfied. I mean we have JOKER in the story now, so it's not like we're going to run out of humor anytime soon.**

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember, I'll always love you if you make your review longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**


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